"This is a little more evidence that things are perhaps stepping down a bit. A lot of global hopes were pinned on the U.S. outperforming, so this may reverberate around the world as policy makers look to the U.S."
- JPMorgan Chase
The US economy posted another month of weak job growth in September, raising new doubts the economy may not be strong enough for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by the end of this year. According to the Labour Department, payrolls outside the farming industry added 142,000 last month and August growth figures were revised sharply lower to only 136,000, instead of the initially reported 173,000. July's increase the US hiring was also revised down to 223,000 from the previously reported 245,000. Generally, over the past three months, payrolls grew just 167,000, which is the weakest print since the period of December 2013 to February 2014. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained at a seven-year low of 5.1% in the ninth month of the year after falling from 5.2% in August.
Meanwhile, orders for goods produced by American factories tanked by 1.7% in August, following just a slight rise of 0.2% in the preceding month. Analysts estimated a decline of 0.9%. It was the steepest slide since December of the previous year, when orders dipped by 3.7%. A drop was led by falling demand for commercial airplanes and weakness the specific category, which measures business investment spending.
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