Investing.com - The U.S. created fewer jobs than expected in September, the Labor Department reported Friday, but job gains for the previous two months were revised higher and the unemploymet rate reached a 48-year low.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by 134,000 last month. Economists were expecting a gain of 185,000 jobs.
Payroll gains for August were revised to 270,000 from the 201,000 initially reported, while July was revised up to 165,000 from 147,000.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.7%, a level not seen since 1969.
Average hourly earnings, an important number to gauge inflation, rose 2.8% year over year in September. Month on month, wages grew 0.3%. Both measures were in line with expectations.
Investors remained hesitant over what the numbers meant for stocks. The glass-half-full interpretation would focus on the lower-than-expected payroll rise as putting less pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise rates, especially with wage growth arriving as anticipated. But the glass-half-empty view would note the strong upward revisions, and the impact on Hurricane Florence on September's hiring, which indicate the labor market is still on a tear.
S&P 500 Futures remained barely in negative territory after the report was released, littlle changed from where they were ahead of the numbers.
Bond yields, which pummeled stocks on Thursday, continued to climb, though. The yield on the 10-Year Treasury hit a new 7-year high of 3.227% shortly after the data arrived, up from 3.202% just before, but then pared gains.
While it's great to see the labor market recovery continue into its eigth year, the Fed has to be worried about job growth continuing at this pace, University of Michigan Economics Professor Justin Wolfers tweeted.
Professional and business services led the September jobs gains, rising by 54,000 last month. Health care and construction employment gains were also strong.
The labor force participation rate stayed at 62.7%.
The broader U6 measure of unemployment rose to 7.5% in September from 7.4% in August, as the number of people working part-time for economic reasons increased by 263,000. The number of long-term unemployed workers remained at 1.4 million.