The US Department of Labor reported Friday that the US unemployment rate stagnated in August after falling 0.1 percent in July. While the private sector added 17,000 jobs last month, those gains were offset by the loss of 17,000 government jobs, resulting in the unemployment rate remaining at 9.1 percent.
Additionally, The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) said Friday that construction employment showed little movement in August, dipping 5,000 below the July total but remaining 4,000 higher than a year ago.
"Today's report continues a long-running zigzag pattern of minimal up-and-down changes in construction employment," said Ken Simonson, the AGC's chief economist. "The free-fall has ended, but the seasonally adjusted employment total in August--5.5 million--has been virtually unchanged for a year and a half.
Simonson noted that the industry's 13.5 percent unemployment rate was an improvement from the 17 percent rate of a year earlier but far above the all-industry rate of 9.1 percent.