US employers added one lakh and 42 thousand last month, the labor department announced today, in one of the year’s most closely watched economic news releases. The release comes as the US Federal Reserve prepares to cut interest rates for the first time since March 2020.

The reading for August was shy of the average forecast increase of 1 lakh 63 thousand jobs by economists surveys. The headline unemployment rate also decreased from 4.3 percent to 4.2 percent in line with expectations. The drop in the unemployment rate followed four straight monthly increases, which had lifted it near a three-year high of 4.3 percent in July.