Hiring cooled in August, the latest in a long line of data indicating Trump’s trade war is starting to bite

9/6/19
 
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from The Washington Post,
9/6/19:

The unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent.

Hiring cooled in August, the latest in a long line of data released this summer that indicates President Trump’s trade war is starting to bite into an economy that could be on the verge of entering a rough patch.

The U.S. economy added 130,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said Friday, below expectations of 160,000 job gains. The numbers were padded in part because the government hired a large number of temporary workers for the 2020 Census.

The hiring slowdown comes as broader economic growth has softened this year. The manufacturing sector is in a recession, and businesses have curtailed spending, largely as a result of headwinds from abroad and Trump’s trade policy whiplash.

This is a “murky” time for the economy with “significant risks,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said Friday during remarks in Switzerland.

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