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Washington DC
Job growth in August was a “huge disappointment”, with the closely watched nonfarm payrolls data showing total new hiring of just 235,000 compared to consensus forecasts of 720,000, says CNBC. The monthly gain is the weakest since January and comes amid “heightened fears of the pandemic and the impact that rising Covid-19 cases could have on what has been a mostly robust recovery”. The US is seeing about 150,000 new coronavirus cases per day, and leisure and hospitality businesses seem to have been especially hard hit by this resurgence in infections. After adding an average of 350,000 jobs per month in the last six months, hiring in the sector stalled in August. However, “August’s numbers have been volatile in past years and often see substantial revisions” in subsequent months, suggesting conditions might be better than this data suggests. Other indicators seem more
