6 things to know about the job market right now: It's 'near-perfect,' economist says
Both jobseekers and policymakers can take solace in the current state of the U.S. job market, according to labor economists.
Largely, that's because it's cooling gradually but remains strong — a sort of Goldilocks scenario whereby workers can find jobs with relative ease but the Federal Reserve likely won't see the need to keep raising interest rates, experts said.
«I think the labor market is near-perfect,» said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. «It's resilient but easing.»
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Put another way: «The labor market was sprinting last year and now it's getting closer to a marathon pace,» said Nick Bunker, head of economic research at job site Indeed. «A slowdown is welcome; it's the only way to go the distance.»
Of course, it's unclear how fast and to what extent the market will continue to cool, economists said. But here are six things for workers and jobseekers to know right now.
The U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said Friday.
Job growth is clearly losing momentum: The three-month average in August was 150,000 jobs added, versus 201,000 in June, for example, Bunker said.
But August's reading was «exactly in line» with the 2015-2019 average of 190,000 a month, said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. And job gains in August were broad-based across industries, she said.
Lat month's tally was also reduced by tens of thousands due to one-off factors like ongoing strikes in Hollywood and trucking-sector layoffs largely driven by the bankruptcy of
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