U.S. payrolls rose 162,000 in August, much more than expected; unemployment rate at 4.1%

JUST IN: US economy added 162,000 jobs in August, far above the 53,000 expected, with unemployment holding at 4.1%.

America added 162,000 jobs in August. Wall Street expected 53,000.

That's triple the forecast, and the strongest month since March. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says unemployment held at 4.1 percent even as nearly 700,000 people came off the sidelines to look for work. Restaurants and bars led the hiring, and June and July both got revised up. The summer slowdown everyone was writing obituaries for just got up and walked out of the room.

So why did stock futures dip on great news? Because good news for workers is awkward news for rate cuts. The Federal Reserve decides on interest rates in less than two weeks, and short-term Treasury yields jumped the second this landed. A hot jobs number gives Jerome Powell zero cover to ease.

One shadow in the data. Information industries, the sector closest to AI, shed another 23,000 jobs. The economy's hiring. The algorithms are too.

This is Kateryna Kovalenko, reporting for HIT.