SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The U.S. job market rebounded last month after a disappointing July. A report out today shows employers added 162,000 jobs in August, and the unemployment rate held steady at a low 4.1%. So the job market looks stable at a time when we know inflation remains high, and that could impact the Federal Reserve's calculation as it makes a decision on interest rates later this month. NPR's Scott Horsley joins me now. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Scott.
DETROW: Hiring was stronger in August than forecasters expected. Any sense what's going on?
HORSLEY: Some of this really is a rebound after a very weak jobs report in July, when both restaurants and public schools cut jobs. A lot of those losses were reversed in August. We also saw job gains in other sectors last month, including construction, manufacturing and healthcare. There aren't a whole lot of jobs being added in those areas, but there also are not a whole lot of layoffs. Laura Ullrich, who's an economist at the job search company Indeed, says the labor market's kind of in a holding pattern.
LAURA ULLRICH: If you already have a job, then today's report overall is very positive, right? But if you're looking for work, I think this still remains quite a frustrating time because there's not a lot of churn going on, so it's still a difficult time to get a job.
HORSLEY: One positive sign is that we did see more people coming off the sidelines in August and joining the workforce. Many of those newcomers did find work, so the unemployment rate remains very low.
DETROW: I'm wondering with that low unemployment rate, are employers having to pay more to attract workers?
HORSLEY: A little bit more. Wages are going up, but not as fast as they had been. And that's another sign the job market's kind of stuck in neutral. Average wages in August were up 3.1% from a year ago. That's a smaller annual increase than the previous month. And Ullrich says, lately, workers' wages have not been keeping up with the rising cost of living.
ULLRICH: This is why people hate inflation so much, right? They see when they go to the grocery store or fill up the tank or managing their monthly budgets that inflation is a tough tax on families.
HORSLEY: Just today, the price of diesel fuel hit an all-time high, $5.85 a gallon. And, of course, that has the potential to drive up prices for everything that moves by truck or train.
DETROW: All right, so 160,000 new jobs. Who got them? Where did they go?
HORSLEY: Hundred-sixty-two thousand, and here's an interesting detail. Almost all of those new jobs, nearly 98%, went to women.
DETROW: Interesting.
HORSLEY: Now, that's partly because the industries that added the most jobs - restaurants, healthcare, public schools - those are all industries dominated by women. But even in, say, manufacturing, which is often thought of as a man's career, more than half the 16,000 jobs added last month went to women. Ullrich says that's partly because factories increasingly need employees with specialized skills, not just strong backs, and women have been developing a lot of those skills.
ULLRICH: If you talk to community colleges, for example, they will tell you they're having more women enroll in these programs. And so I think you're also seeing some of that, that women are choosing some of these other sectors that have been more male dominated.
HORSLEY: Earlier this year, women surpassed men on the jobs tally, which has happened only a few times before. And since then, women have widened that lead.
DETROW: Interesting. Now, how is the jobs report going to affect the Fed's thinking about interest rates?
HORSLEY: Well, the Fed has to decide in a couple of weeks whether to raise interest rates, and odds of a September rate hike went up after this morning's jobs report since it looks like the job market is strong enough to weather a rate hike. Of course, a lot's going to depend on what the inflation scorecard says when it comes out next week.
DETROW: That is NPR's Scott Horsley, who does a good job covering the economy for us. Thank you, Scott.
HORSLEY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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