Payrolls Rose 162,000 in August, Three Times the Consensus. June and July Were Revised Up by 55,000.

American employers added 162,000 jobs in August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on September 4. The consensus estimate compiled by Dow Jones was 53,000. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1%.

The size of the beat is the story, and so is where it came from. The 12-month average monthly gain going into the report was 31,000. August ran at roughly five times that pace, and the two preceding months were revised up as well.

The revisions

• June: revised up 11,000, from a 20,000 gain to a 31,000 gain.
• July: revised up 44,000, from a 23,000 loss to a 21,000 gain.
• Combined: 55,000 more jobs than previously reported.

The July revision matters more than its size suggests. As first published, July showed the labor market shedding jobs. As revised, it shows the labor market adding them. A sign flip of that kind is a reminder that the first print of any month is provisional: the establishment survey collects late responses for two further months, and the initial estimate is the one built on the fewest of them.

Where the jobs were

• Leisure and hospitality: +62,000, of which food services and drinking places accounted for 59,000.
• Local government education: +42,000.
• Construction: +22,000.
• Manufacturing: +16,000.
• Health care: +13,000 — well below its 32,000 average monthly gain over the prior 12 months. Home health services added 11,000 and hospitals 8,000.
• Retail trade: +1,400.
• Information: -23,000.

Two industries did most of the work. Restaurants and bars plus local school district payrolls together account for 101,000 of the 162,000. That is a narrow base for a strong headline, and it is worth separating from the sectors that have carried recent months. Health care, the most reliable source of payroll growth over the past two years, added less than half its usual monthly amount. Information shed 23,000.

Hours, pay and the household survey

Average hourly earnings for all private employees rose 10 cents, or 0.3%, to $37.75. Over the 12 months to August, earnings are up 3.1%. The average workweek edged up 0.1 hour to 34.4 hours; overtime in manufacturing was unchanged at 3.1 hours.

On the household side, the participation rate edged up to 61.6% and the employment-population ratio was 59.1%. The number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or longer was little changed at 1.9 million, or 27.0% of all unemployed people. That share has held near a quarter of the unemployed for months: the flow into unemployment is not unusual, but the exit rate from it is slow.

The other payroll number

ADP's private-payroll estimate for August, published two days before the government figure, showed 38,000 jobs added — the weakest month of 2026 by that measure, with softness concentrated in manufacturing and professional and business services. The two series are built differently: ADP counts records from its own client payrolls, while the BLS establishment survey is a sample of businesses and government agencies collected by a statistical agency. They diverge routinely. A gap of this width in a single month is nonetheless larger than usual.