A stronger performance for job creation in the United States appears to have eased financial market fears of a US recession.
Closely-watched employment data showed that 142,000 net new jobs were created in the world’s largest economy last month.
While that was below forecasts of 160,000, it represented a significant recovery on a downwardly revised total for July of just 89,000.
A total of around 200,000 is typically considered healthy.
Anticipation of a stronger performance than witnessed in July, which sparked heavy stock market losses, was seen in values ahead of the data’s publication.
The update from the Labor Department was received as “mixed” by many analysts, though most saw enough evidence to suggest the downturn in job creation may have bottomed out, making the central bank’s interest rate decision easier.
Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said of the report: “All of this does little to clear up the debate over the September Fed meeting.
“Doves will point to a cooling pace of headline payrolls growth as potential reasoning for a larger 50bp [basis point] cut.
“Hawks, meanwhile, will reasonably point towards the lack of further cooling compared to the July report, and hot-ish earnings growth, as reasons to kick-off the normalisation cycle with a more modest 25bp move.
“My base case remains for the latter, particularly given the risk the Fed run of sparking a market panic were a larger cut to be delivered.”