Outlook gloomy for August jobs report

The stakes are high and the forecast is gloomy, ahead of the August jobs report scheduled to be released Friday by the Labor Department.

A month ago, that report showed businesses added 163,000 jobs in July. Job gains at that level were the strongest in five months, but still were not robust enough to keep up with population growth. The unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3%.

Unfortunately, August doesn’t look like it fared much better.

Employers probably added about 120,000 jobs, keeping the unemployment rate at its current level, according to economists surveyed by CNNMoney.

The August jobs report is a critical one, given the Federal Reserve meets less than a week later.

The balance seems tipped in favor of doing more to stimulate the economy, after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the job market remains a “grave concern” causing “enormous suffering and waste of human talent.”

via: CNN Money

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