The Jobs Numbers Suck.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 142,000 in August. Generally improvement in the employment situation starts at about 200,000:

American employers hired fewer workers than forecast in August and the jobless rate dropped because people left the workforce, bolstering those on the Federal Reserve who want to be more deliberate in removing monetary stimulus.

The 142,000 advance in payrolls was the smallest this year and followed a revised 212,000 gain in July, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The reading was lower than the most pessimistic estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent last month from 6.2 percent, reflecting a drop in joblessness among teenagers as well as the decline in labor participation.

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The median projection in the Bloomberg survey of 91 economists called for a 230,000 increase in August payrolls. Estimates ranged from increases of 190,000 to 310,000 after a previously reported 209,000 July gain. Revisions to prior reports subtracted a total of 28,000 jobs from overall payrolls in the previous two months.

The participation rate, which indicates the share of working-age people in the labor force, decreased 0.1 percentage point to 62.8 percent, matching the lowest since 1978.

Basically, this just sucks.