Unemployment Rate Drops to 7.3% as 169K Jobs Added in August
Published at | Updated at
Tim Boyle/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — U.S. employers added 169,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, slightly lower than what economists had anticipated, the Labor Department reported Friday morning.
Economists had expected to see around 177,000 jobs added in August.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, dropped from 7.4 percent to 7.3 percent, marking the lowest rate in nearly five years. Friday’s report, however, showed that the labor force participation rate went down last month — something that should go up in a healthy job market.
In more bad news, the Labor Department revised its figures for June and July to show that 74,000 fewer jobs were added in those months.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio