After two months of straight growth, the US Labor Department announced that employment numbers slowed more than expected in August. Nonfarm employment, which rose by 275,000 in July, decreased to 151,000 in August. Economists had forecasted payrolls increasing by 180,000 and a .1% drop in the unemployment rate to 4.8%. The US Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.9%. The slowdown is cited to potentially be caused by difficulties in adjusting data based on seasonality and changes due to school calendars. On Thursday it was announced that the manufacturing sector tightened, which coupled with today’s Labor Department numbers, makes a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in September less likely.
See "U.S. nonfarm payrolls rise less than expected; wage growth moderates", Lucia Mutikani, Reuters, September 2, 2016