August 2017 Employment Situation — 2017-09-01

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 156,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in manufacturing, construction, professional and technical services, health care, and mining. In August, the unemployment rate, at 4.4 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 7.1 million, were little changed. After declining earlier in the year, the unemployment rate has been either 4.3 or 4.4 percent since April. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.1 percent), adult women (4.0 percent), teenagers (13.6 percent), Whites (3.9 percent), Blacks (7.7 percent), Asians (4.0 percent), and Hispanics (5.2 percent) showed little or no change in August. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged in August at 1.7 million and accounted for 24.7 percent of the unemployed.