The daily business briefing: October 5, 2018

September job gains fall short of expectations, Lenovo shares drop after report of China data-center spying, and more

The Lenovo logo in Shanghai
(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images)

1. Economy adds 134,000 jobs, unemployment falls to 49-year low

The U.S. economy added 134,000 nonfarm jobs in September, roughly half the gain seen in August but still enough to bring the unemployment rate down to a 49-year low of 3.7 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. The number of new jobs fell short of expectations. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a gain of 168,000. Average hourly wages rose by 0.3 percent to $27.24 an hour, with the 12-month rate for wage growth slowing to 2.8 percent from 2.9 percent the previous month, which was a nine-year high. The Labor Department also revised the employment gains for July and August upward. Economist cautioned against reading too much into the low September job growth, since it was probably affected by displacements and other distortions caused by Hurricane Florence.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.