Hiring rose in July despite fears over Covid-19′s delta variant and as companies struggled with a tight labor supply, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 943,000 for the month while the unemployment rate dropped to 5.4%, according to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 845,000 new jobs and a headline jobless rate of 5.7%.
Average hourly earnings also increased more than expected, rising 0.4% for the month.
The drop in the headline unemployment rate looked even stronger considering that the labor force participation rate ticked up to 61.7%, tied for the highest level since the pandemic hit in March 2020. A separate calculation that includes discouraged workers and those holding jobs part-time for economic reasons fell even further, to 9.2% from 9.8% in June.
