August 2025 Jobs Report: The Latest Employment Trends

The latest job report for August provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of employment in the United States.

August’s Key Findings

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 22,000 jobs were added in August, indicating a continued period of stagnant job growth that has persisted since April. The unemployment rate edged up slightly to 4.3%, suggesting a mild softening in the broader labor market.

Key sectors include:

• Healthcare
• Social Assistance

Sector-Specific Employment Changes

Employment trends in August 2025 reflected ongoing growth in healthcare and social assistance, while federal government jobs continued to decline. Losses were also observed in mining and manufacturing.

Healthcare

Healthcare added 31,000 jobs in August, falling below its 12-month average of 42,000 jobs. Growth was spread across ambulatory healthcare services (+13,000), nursing and residential care facilities (+9,000), and hospitals (+9,000), underscoring continued demand for frontline medical staff and long-term care professionals.

Social Assistance

Social assistance saw an increase of 16,000 jobs, continuing its upward trajectory. This gain was entirely driven by growth in individual and family services, highlighting persistent community needs for support services.

Other Sectors

• Federal Government: Employment fell by 15,000 jobs in August, bringing the cumulative job loss in the sector to 97,000 jobs since its peak in January.
• Mining, Quarrying, and Oil & Gas Extraction: Employment declined by 6,000 jobs in August, reversing a trend of relative stability over the previous year.
• Wholesale Trade: Continued its downward trend with a loss of 12,000 jobs, totaling a 32,000-job decline since May.
• Manufacturing: Employment was little changed (-12,000), but is down 78,000 jobs over the past year. Notably, transportation equipment manufacturing lost 15,000 jobs, in part due to strike activity.

Other major industries, including construction, retail, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and other services, showed little to no change in August.

Unemployment Rates

The overall unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.3%, with the number of unemployed individuals increasing to 7.4 million.

Unemployment rates by demographic group:

• Adult men: 4.1%
• Adult women: 3.8%
• Teenagers: 13.9%
• White population: 3.7%
• Black population: 7.5%
• Asian population: 3.6%
• Hispanic population: 5.3%

The number of new entrants to the labor force, those seeking their first job, decreased by 199,000 to 786,000, nearly offsetting a rise the previous month.

Long-term unemployment (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) held steady at 1.9 million in August, but is up 385,000 over the past year, now accounting for 25.7% of all unemployed individuals.

The labor force participation rate remained at 62.3%, while the employment-population ratio held at 59.6%. Both measures have declined by 0.4 percentage points over the year, reflecting subtle but sustained disengagement from the workforce.

The number of people working part-time for economic reasons remained stable at 4.7 million.

The number of people not in the labor force but wanting a job was unchanged at 6.4 million in August, though it has increased by 722,000 over the past year. Of these, 1.8 million were marginally attached to the labor force, and 514,000 were classified as discouraged workers, those who believe no jobs are available for them.

Wage Growth & Average Workweek

Wages continued to grow in August, offering some positive news amid otherwise flat employment numbers:

• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.3% (10 cents) to $36.53.
• Over the past 12 months, wages have risen by 3.7%.
• Private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees saw their average hourly earnings rise by 12 cents (0.4%) to $31.46.

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls held steady at 34.2 hours for the third straight month. In manufacturing, the average workweek edged down to 40.0 hours, while overtime remained unchanged at 2.9 hours. For production and nonsupervisory employees, the workweek was unchanged at 33.7 hours.

Updates To Prior Months’ Employment Data

Revisions to prior employment figures show mixed adjustments:

• June 2025: Revised downward by 27,000 jobs, from +14,000 to -13,000.
• July 2025: Revised upward by 6,000 jobs, from +73,000 to +79,000.

These adjustments result in a net downward revision of 21,000 jobs across the two months. As always, such revisions highlight the importance of treating initial estimates with caution.

For further reading, check out our other blogs on topics related to the job market.

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