Ugly surprises from US job data. In September the companies of United States they created 142 thousand jobs, while analysts expected an increase of 200 thousand units. The Labor Department specified that the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5,1%, as expected, or within the threshold between 5 and 5,2% that the Federal Reserve considers a condition of "full employment". .
In particular, 118 thousand were created in the private sector jobs and 24 thousand in the public one. Looking at the individual sectors, in the manufacturing sector the situation changed little, in the health sector there were 34.000 new employees, in professional services 31 thousand and in retail 24 thousand.
Furthermore, the previous months' figures on new wage earners have been revised downwards: the August data was revised from 173 thousand to 136 thousand jobs created, that of July was updated from 245 to 223 thousand. Also worrying is that labor force participation, unchanged in the previous three months, has slipped from 62,6 to 62,4%, the lowest since October 1977, and far below the 66% before the recession.
As for the wages, which had been rising more or less rapidly in previous months, fell by a cent, to $25,09 an hour. On an annual basis, however, they grew by 2,2%, in line with the range between 1,9 and 2,2% recorded from 2012 onwards, but below the normal pace of periods of economic growth. The length of the average working week fell by 0,1 hour to 34,5 hours.
All these numbers will be decisive for the choice of Federal Reservecalled to decide when to start raising interest rates.
