The August unemployment report, out this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was very much in line with what we've seen recently: The economy added 169,000 jobs for the month, as compared with an average of 184,000 per month over the previous year. And as has been happening recently, the headline unemployment figure ticked down slightly, from 7.4 percent to 7.3 percent.
One key, and troubling, difference is that earlier months saw their jobs numbers revised downward. More often recently, we've been finding out that previous months were better than first reported. But June's figure was revised down from 188,000 to 172,000, and July's was revised down from 162,000 to 104,000 - a loss of 58,000 jobs in that month alone.
The sector of the economy generating the most jobs continues to be retail, reflecting the fact that Americans' personal spending habits appear to be growing. Retail created 44,000 jobs in August, and has now added 393,000 jobs over the past 12 months.
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