Finance News · Saturday, 5 September 2026

01 Briefing what happened

US hiring came in three times too strong. Trump told the central bank to cut rates anyway, or he stops trade.

American employers added 162,000 jobs in August against a 53,000 forecast, and traders moved to betting on a rate rise in two weeks. Hours later the US president demanded the lowest interest rates in the world and threatened to halt trade if he did not get them.

162,000

US jobs added in August, against the 53,000 forecast

the biggest monthly gain since March [3][7]

60%

chance traders put on a US rate rise at the 15-16 September meeting

up from 55% before the figures landed that morning [1]

4.1%

share of US workers without a job, unchanged from July

and it held even as about 683,000 people joined the labour force [4]

3.1%

US pay growth over the past year, down from 3.2%

wages are not keeping up with prices, which higher fuel costs have pushed up again [5][10]

The lead story — what happened

US employers added 162,000 jobs in August, about three times the 53,000 forecasters expected. [7][3]
July looked worse than it was: a reported loss of 23,000 jobs was revised to a gain of 21,000, and June and July together were revised up by 55,000. [4][6]
Traders swung from expecting the US central bank to sit still to betting it raises rates at its meeting on 15-16 September. The odds went from about 55% before the figures to 60% after, and as high as 65%. [1][4]
Hours later President Donald Trump demanded the bank cut rates to what he called the lowest rate of any country in the world. [2]
He said that without a cut he could halt a broad range of US trade, singling out countries that sell more to the US than they buy from it. [2][11]
The US central bank does not take orders from the US president. It has held rates since last December, and prices have run above its 2% target for more than five years. [2]
A cut now would push the opposite way to what the bank's own people have signalled, and could make inflation worse. [2]
Share prices fell. The Dow Jones average lost 305.54 points, or 0.57%, to 53,380.57, the S&P 500 lost 0.44% and the Nasdaq 0.43%. [1]
Borrowing costs rose. The ten-year US government rate touched 4.8% before settling at 4.78%, and the two-year rate, which tracks near-term policy, rose to 4.38%. [5][8]
The hiring was narrow. Restaurants and bars supplied 59,000 of the 162,000 and local government schools 42,000, while the information sector shed jobs. [4][3]
Two counts of the same month disagree. The payroll firm ADP found 38,000 private jobs added in August; the US government's own survey found 127,000. [4]
The decision now rests on figures nobody has seen: US producer prices next Thursday and consumer prices next Friday, the week before the meeting. [9][3]

Who is involved

Donald Trump

the US president; he demanded a rate cut and threatened to halt trade with countries that sell more to the US than they buy [2][11]
Kevin Warsh

chairman of the US central bank; he stopped telling markets what he plans to do next, so every data release now carries more weight [9]
Christopher Waller

one of the bank's governors; he said on Thursday he would back holding rates steady if the inflation figures allow it [9]
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics

the US government agency that counts American jobs; its revision turned July from a loss into a gain [4]
ADP

the payroll company that runs a rival monthly count; it found a third as many private jobs as the US government's own survey did [4]

What is pushing on this

Political pressure on the US central bank High↑

Trump demanded the world's lowest rates and threatened to stop trade [2]

The case for raising rates Building↑

162,000 jobs, and prices above target for five years [7][2]

Doubt about the count itself Steady→

ADP counted 38,000 private jobs in August, the US government survey 127,000 [4]

Investor calm Easing↓

shares fell and borrowing costs rose within an hour of the release [1][5]

How it unfolded

Thursday a US central bank governor says he could back holding rates, and borrowing costs fall [5][9]
Friday morning the August jobs figures land at 162,000, three times the forecast [7]
Friday, within the hour rate-rise odds go from 55% to 60%, shares fall and borrowing costs rise [1]
Friday afternoon Trump demands the world's lowest rates and threatens to halt trade [2]
Next Thursday and Friday US producer and consumer price figures, the last data before the decision [9][3]
15-16 September the US central bank meets and decides [1]

Where this points

Watch next Friday's US consumer price figures - they are the last data before the 15-16 September meeting, and the odds on a rise have already moved twice this week on less. [9][1]

The rest of the day

23 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
Europe's central bank set to raise rates

The European Central Bank, which sets interest rates for the twenty countries using the euro, is expected to raise them by a quarter of a percentage point on 10 September. Prices across the eurozone rose 3.3% in the year to August, up from 2.9% in July, and almost all of that came from energy, which cost 14.3% more than a year earlier. Strip out energy and food and the rise slowed, to 2.4% from 2.5%. Markets where investors bet on future rates put the chance of the increase at about 99%. [16][17]

Why it matters — It would take the rate the bank pays banks on deposits to 2.50%, its second rise this year after eight cuts. Carsten Brzeski of the bank ING calls it insurance against energy costs spreading into wages, and says going further would hurt the eurozone economy. [16]
03
World's biggest state fund proposes selling $80bn of US debt

Norges Bank Investment Management, which runs Norway's $2.3 trillion oil fund, wrote to Norway's finance ministry on Tuesday recommending it cut government bonds in the index its performance is measured against. That would mean selling about $80 billion of US government debt. US Treasuries would fall to 21.9% of its bond benchmark from 34.1%, with most of the money moving into US mortgage bonds instead. Its overall holding of dollar assets would barely change, at 52.5% against 52.9% now. [14]

Why it matters — The fund calls it a routine rebalancing, and it lands while the US government owes $40 trillion and borrows about $2 trillion more a year. Global investors asking a higher price to lend to the US is one reason American mortgage rates sit near 6.8%. [14][13]
04
US diesel hits a record $5.85 a gallon

The average American pump price for diesel reached $5.85 a gallon, according to the motoring group AAA, beating the previous record of $5.8159 set in June 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. Diesel moves lorries, trains and farm machinery, so its price feeds into almost everything on a shelf. The shortage follows Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, which pushed Russia's government to extend its ban on diesel exports again, this time to 30 September. [18][11][19]

Why it matters — Record fuel prices land on American households two months before midterm elections, and on every business that pays a freight bill. Phil Flynn, the analyst who reported the record, argues the squeeze may already be near its peak if the refinery attacks stop. [18][19]
05
Senegal cut to CC as it starts a debt rework

S&P Global Ratings cut Senegal's credit score to CC from CCC+, with a negative outlook, after the West African country's government launched a plan to restructure what it owes. S&P said a distressed exchange - where lenders are asked to accept less than they are owed - or an outright default on Senegal's foreign-currency commercial debt is now extremely likely. CC sits two steps above default on S&P's scale, and a negative outlook means the next move is more likely down than up. [20][21][22]

Why it matters — S&P is not lending Senegal anything. It is publishing an opinion, and that opinion sets what every other lender will charge the country. [20][21]
06
One official post wipes a sixth off FICO

Bill Pulte, who runs the US Federal Housing Finance Agency, said on Thursday night that he had ordered a change at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those two firms, created by the US Congress, stand behind most American home loans. Every lender may now use VantageScore, a rival to the FICO credit score. FICO's owner, Fair Isaac, fell 15.99% on Friday. TransUnion dropped 7.64% and Equifax 6.58%. Pulte also accused the credit-reporting firms of overcharging customers. [1][15]

Why it matters — Nobody's creditworthiness changed on Thursday night. What changed is whose number a mortgage lender is allowed to use, and that alone moved billions of dollars of share value in a day. [1][15]
07
Greece's outlook raised to Positive

Morningstar DBRS, one of the firms that grade how safely governments can borrow, changed its outlook on Greece to Positive from Stable and confirmed the rating at BBB. It expects Greek government debt to fall from 143.5% of the country's yearly output in March 2026 to 134.4% by the end of 2027. Greece ran a surplus before interest payments of 4.9% of its economy in 2025, while the rest of the European Union averaged a deficit of 1.0%. [23]

Why it matters — A better outlook lowers what a country pays to borrow. Greece's improvement came largely from collecting more tax: income taxes and VAT together rose by 3.2 percentage points of national output between 2019 and 2025. [23]
08
Cyprus outlook raised the same afternoon

The same firm changed its outlook on Cyprus to Positive and confirmed its rating at A. Cypriot government debt is expected to fall from 49.9% of the economy this year to below 40% by 2029, helped by budget surpluses of around 3% a year. The island's economy grew 3.8% in 2025 and its central bank expects about 3% a year from here. Tourist arrivals fell about 8% in the first seven months of 2026 because of the war in Iran, less than had been feared. [24]

Why it matters — Two small euro-area countries were raised on the same afternoon a West African one was cut. The judgments come from the same kind of firm and carry the same weight with lenders. [23][24][20]
09
US office and mall loans downgraded again

Morningstar DBRS cut its ratings on every class of a 2013 bundle of American commercial property loans, projecting losses of nearly $52 million. That is enough to wipe out one unrated slice and about 60% of the next one up. The biggest problem is Oglethorpe Mall in Savannah, Georgia, valued at $128.7 million in May 2025 against $236.5 million when the loan was made. In a separate deal the firm projected $129.7 million of losses, driven by a Norwalk, Connecticut office campus that is 35% occupied since GE Capital moved out. [25][27]

Why it matters — These loans back bonds that were sold on to investors. Nobody is buying the properties, so the losses are set by an analyst cutting 20% to 70% off an old valuation. [25][27]
10
Times Square tower loses its main tenant

Morningstar DBRS turned negative on bonds backed by Paramount Plaza, a large office block in Times Square in New York, after its main tenant said it is leaving. Paramount Skydance occupies 86.5% of the rentable space and is moving its headquarters to Los Angeles while cutting staff. It must keep paying rent until 2031 and cannot break the lease. The loan matures in 2028, and the owner, SL Green, is now proposing a 1,000-room hotel and entertainment venue after a plan to build a casino there was rejected. [26]

Why it matters — The firm put two values on the same building: $988.1 million if it keeps working as an office, and $328.1 million if it empties out. On the second number the debt is worth more than twice the building. [26]
11
The interest that gets paid in more debt

Morningstar said private credit funds increasingly let borrowers skip cash interest payments and add them to the loan instead, a practice called payment-in-kind. The borrower pays nothing today and owes more tomorrow, like rolling a credit card bill into the balance. Because private loans are not traded, there is no daily price to signal that a borrower is struggling, and the figure appears on no fund factsheet. Morningstar has now added a way for its users to screen for it across funds. [28]

Why it matters — Until now an investor had to dig through each fund's financial statements to find how much of its income was cash and how much was a promise to pay later. A rising share is one of the few early warnings a private lender gets. [28]
12
Bank of England chief on why states pay more

Andrew Bailey, who runs the Bank of England, said weak productivity and shocks such as COVID have pushed government debt up across rich countries, and that is why lenders now charge them more. Ageing populations and higher defence spending add to it. He was answering a question about why investors recently wanted a higher return on French government debt than on the debt of the cosmetics company L'Oreal. British ten-year borrowing costs hit their highest in almost twenty years this week, and longer-dated ones the highest since 1998. [29]

Why it matters — Investors put the chance of a British rate rise this month at about 10%, but above 60% for the meeting in November. Government borrowing costs feed into mortgages, so this is not an academic argument for anyone with a home loan. [29]
13
US to buy back more of its own long debt

The US Treasury will start increasing its buybacks of long-term government debt next week, an attempt to make that market trade more smoothly and hold borrowing costs down. The ten-year US borrowing rate has risen about three quarters of a percentage point in six months and sits near 4.8%, the highest of Trump's second term. Ludovic Subran, chief investment officer at the German insurer Allianz, said investors want a higher price to lend to the US because of large deficits and government intervention in the market. [13]

Why it matters — American mortgage rates have followed to nearly 6.8%, and car loans move with the same rate. The US government is projected to hit its $41.1 trillion borrowing limit somewhere between late winter and mid-summer 2027. [13]
14
How the US stake in Venezuelan oil works

A US official set out how the American government's 35% stake in a Venezuelan oil venture is built. It is held as penny warrants, which are rights to buy shares later for a token sum, and the structure stops the stake shrinking as the company raises money. The US is paid dividends before the warrants are ever used. The US defence department can also buy a fifth of the venture's oil at what it costs to produce, well under what anyone else would pay. The company, controlled by Alejandro Betancourt, was given hundred-year rights to 17 oilfields with no competitive bidding. [30]

Why it matters — US State and Justice Department officials asked Swiss counterparts not to proceed with Betancourt's extradition, according to people familiar with the matter. Spain and Switzerland had both investigated him over money laundering and Britain arrested him last year; he has never been charged and denies wrongdoing. [31][30]
15
Quanex jumps 21% on a profit beat

Quanex Building Products, which makes window and door components for American homebuilders, reported quarterly adjusted earnings of $0.79 a share against the $0.65 expected, on revenue of $501.8 million. Sales volumes were flat; the improvement came from charging about 3% more. The shares rose 20.6% to $22.63. A year earlier the same quarter showed a $276 million loss, because the company wrote off $302.3 million of goodwill. Managers described the housing market as demand deferred rather than demand destroyed. [32]

Why it matters — The company sits directly downstream of American mortgage rates, which are near 6.8%. It expects lower tariff costs to help the current quarter. [32][13]
16
Warsaw exchange posts its best return in seven years

The Warsaw Stock Exchange group, which runs Poland's main share market, reported second-quarter revenue up 8% to 155.4 million zloty and a return on equity of 20.1%, its highest in seven years. Polish share indices are up about 30% so far this year, and the WIG20, the main one, reached a record on a price basis. Share trading rose 15% in the quarter and 27% in the first half. Costs grew faster than revenue, at 10.2%, so adjusted net profit rose only 1%. [33]

Why it matters — An exchange earns more when more people trade, so its results read directly on how busy a country's market is. Poland's is having a strong year while European shares fall and bond markets churn. [33][16]
17
Spire Healthcare takeover gets one more day

Spire Healthcare, which runs private hospitals in Britain, said the deadline for Toscafund Asset Management to make a firm takeover offer was pushed back a day, to 5pm London time on Friday. Toscafund is Spire's second-largest shareholder and proposed 250 pence a share in cash in May. Under Britain's takeover rules a bidder must either commit or walk away by the deadline, and only the Takeover Panel can extend it. Toscafund asked for the extra day to finish its financing paperwork. [34]

Why it matters — The rule exists so a company is not left hanging while a bidder makes up its mind. Spire said its checks are finished and the documents nearly final, but that there is still no certainty an offer will be made. [34]
18
Kretinsky becomes West Ham's biggest owner

Daniel Kretinsky, a Czech billionaire, raised his stake in West Ham United, an English Premier League football club, to 46% and is now its largest shareholder. David Sullivan, a former chairman who faces allegations of historical sexual abuse and denies all wrongdoing, went to 40%. Both bought shares from Vanessa Gold, who said earlier this year that she intended to sell her 25% holding. Kretinsky confirmed his new stake in a statement on Friday. [35]

Why it matters — Two shareholders split a departing owner's quarter of the club between them, and control of it moved without the club ever being put up for sale. [35]
19
EU chief flies to Greenland with money

Ursula von der Leyen, who heads the European Commission, travels to Nuuk, Greenland's capital, on Sunday alongside Denmark's prime minister Mette Frederiksen. She is expected to announce new funding for the self-governing Danish territory. The Financial Times reports the package for 2026 and 2027 may reach 200 million euros, about $232 million, aimed at critical minerals, renewable energy and undersea cables. She signed agreements worth close to 94 million euros there in March 2024. [36]

Why it matters — Trump has pushed repeatedly to acquire Greenland and has refused to rule out using force. The European Union's answer is investment, on an island whose critical minerals the European Union wants to help develop. [36]
20
Countries start paying to own their AI

Governments and companies outside the United States and China are spending to build artificial-intelligence systems in their own languages, a push now called sovereign AI. Indosat, one of Indonesia's largest telecoms firms, is building a model for Indonesian languages. South Korean firms are competing in a government-sponsored contest to build the best homegrown model. Humain, backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, launched an Arabic model built by the Chinese developer MiniMax. Korean and Cantonese have around 80 million speakers each; more than 200 million people speak Bahasa Indonesia. [37]

Why it matters — What sovereignty means varies: in Europe it is keeping personal data at home, in the Middle East and much of Asia it is building a local industry. Pak-Sun Ting, founder of the Hong Kong firm Votee AI, said smaller economies do not want to be tethered to anybody who can turn it off. [37]
21
Adobe names a new chief executive

Adobe, the American software company behind Photoshop and Acrobat, said Anil Chakravarthy will succeed its long-serving chief executive Shantanu Narayen in December. Chakravarthy joined Adobe as a senior executive nearly seven years ago, and before that ran Informatica, a cloud data management company that Salesforce bought last November. Adobe's shares fell 6.08% on Friday. [6][1]

Why it matters — An insider succeeding a long-serving boss usually reads as continuity. Investors took it the other way and sold. [1][6]
22
Gold and oil fall on the jobs number

Gold futures fell 1.38% to $4,477.20 an ounce and silver 1.31%, after the American jobs figures pushed up short-term US borrowing costs. Gold pays no interest, so it looks less attractive whenever the return on cash and government debt rises. Oil eased too. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was around $96.90 a barrel in the morning, $2.48 below the day before, and US crude slipped below $90. Brent is still roughly $30 above where it was a year ago. [19][38][12]

Why it matters — The same figures moved metals, oil, shares and bonds inside an hour, all through one channel: what people now expect American interest rates to do. [19][1]
23
The rulebook behind the ratings gets rewritten

Morningstar DBRS published an updated method for rating European and Asia-Pacific bonds backed by consumer and business loans, effective 4 September. These are bundles of car loans, leases and credit card balances sold on to investors, and the method is the recipe the firm uses to decide how safe each slice is. The update reworks how it treats the European credit card market and folds in a separate rulebook for rental car deals as an appendix. The firm says the change is not material and expects no ratings to move because of it. [40]

Why it matters — The bonds and the borrowers are unchanged; only the way of grading them has been redrawn. The same firm rated Greece, Cyprus, a Times Square office block and a Portuguese mortgage pool on the same day. [23][24][26][39]
24
No defaults yet on a Portuguese mortgage pool

Morningstar DBRS confirmed the top ratings, AAA and AA (high), on bonds backed by 325 million euros of Portuguese home loans bundled together in 2022. Its annual review found no defaults at all since the deal closed, with loans more than 90 days late running at 0.1% of the balance still outstanding. The protection cushioning the senior bonds rose to 51.1% from 44.5% a year earlier. The loans were made by the Portuguese arm of UCI, a joint venture between Santander and BNP Paribas. [39]

Why it matters — These are ordinary home loans, made in 2022 just as interest rates across Europe began climbing. Four years in, not one of those borrowers has stopped paying. [39]

02 Lesson why it matters

Somebody has to put a number on it

When nothing is being bought or sold, the price is somebody's estimate - and on Friday, changing who makes the estimate moved billions.

The twist

Nobody's creditworthiness changed on Friday, but the company that measures it lost about a sixth of its value, because one US housing official said lenders could use a rival's number instead.

How it works

Something has no market price - a private loan, a half-empty office, a country's promise, a borrower's reliability
So a firm is appointed to put a number on it
Banks, funds and rules then treat that number as the fact
Change the number, or change who is allowed to make it, and money moves the same day
The thing being measured has not changed at all

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

One official post wipes a sixth off FICO

the step that repeats is the third one - lenders were told which score they may use, and a rule treating that score as the fact did the rest
Senegal cut to CC as it starts a debt rework

S&P lends Senegal nothing; it published an opinion that a default is extremely likely, and that opinion sets what every real lender now charges
US office and mall loans downgraded again

nobody is buying Oglethorpe Mall, so an analyst cut 35% off a year-old valuation, and that haircut is what wiped out a bond class
The interest that gets paid in more debt

private loans have no daily price at all, so the warning signal has to be dug out of financial statements one fund at a time

Where you've seen this

A house with no buyer

a surveyor decides what it is worth, and the mortgage is sized off that

Exam grades in 2020

sittings were cancelled, predictions replaced them, and the predictions decided who went where

An insurance claim after a flood

an assessor prices a ruined kitchen nobody was ever going to sell

A footballer's transfer fee

quoted every week, real only on the day somebody actually pays it

The catch

The estimate is usually the best anyone can do, and refusing to make one does not make the risk go away. It just leaves it uncounted, which is what the private credit story is about.

And the whole of it

Almost everyone is on the wrong side of one of these numbers somewhere - a rent set from a valuation, a loan priced off a score, a pension valued by a model. The people who produce them are mostly careful, and not one of them can see the whole of it either.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

US employers added 162,000 jobs in August and traders moved to betting on a rate rise, and President Donald Trump spent that same afternoon demanding a cut and threatening to halt trade with countries that sell more to the US than they buy. Across the rest of the day the biggest money moves came not from buyers but from people paid to put numbers on things: S&P cut Senegal to CC, Morningstar DBRS raised Greece and Cyprus and wrote down New York offices, and one US housing official knocked 15.99% off FICO's owner by saying lenders may use a rival's score.

Why it works on us — A demand stated as a certainty gets reported as a plan, even when the person making it does not control the thing he is demanding - the US central bank sets the rate, and Trump does not.

Who gains

VantageScore — A US housing official told Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to approve every lender to use its credit score, opening the one market its rival FICO had largely to itself. [1][15]
Greece's government — Morningstar DBRS raised its outlook to Positive, and a better grade lowers what a country pays on everything it borrows next. [23]
Cyprus's government — The same firm raised its outlook, with debt forecast to fall below 40% of the economy by 2029. [24]
Alejandro Betancourt — His company got hundred-year rights to 17 Venezuelan oilfields without competitive bidding, and US officials asked Switzerland not to pursue his extradition. [30][31]
Quanex shareholders — The shares rose 20.6% in a day after a quarterly profit beat built on charging about 3% more, not on selling more. [32]

Who pays

Fair Isaac's shareholders — The stock fell 15.99% in a day on one housing official's social media posts, with TransUnion down 7.64% and Equifax 6.58%. [1][15]
Senegal's government and taxpayers — A cut to CC raises the price of any new commercial borrowing and signals to every lender that repayment in full is not expected. [20][22]
Holders of the junior slices of a 2013 US property loan bundle — Morningstar DBRS projects nearly $52 million of losses, wiping out one unrated class and about 60% of the next. [25]
American home buyers — Mortgage rates sit near 6.8% because the ten-year government borrowing rate is near 4.8%, and it rose again on Friday's jobs figures. [13][5]
Anyone paying a freight bill in the United States — Diesel hit a record $5.85 a gallon, beating the June 2022 peak, and it is the cost base under most delivered goods. [18][19]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

Whether any US trade is actually halted.

No country, no goods and no date were named in the threat, and no mechanism was described. [2]
02

Whether the US central bank raises rates at its 15-16 September meeting.

One of its governors said on Thursday he could back holding, the chairman sounded the other way at Jackson Hole, and the odds moved between 55% and 65% on a single morning's figures. [9][1][4]
03

How strong American hiring really was in August.

The payroll firm ADP counted 38,000 private jobs and the US government survey counted 127,000. Both are estimates of the same month, and July's first estimate was later revised by 44,000. [4]
04

What Senegal's lenders will be asked to accept.

S&P says a distressed exchange or default is extremely likely, but neither report sets out the terms Senegal's government will offer. [20][21]
05

What the Times Square tower Paramount Plaza is worth.

Morningstar DBRS published two numbers for the same building on the same day - $988.1 million as a working office and $328.1 million if it empties - and nobody is buying it to settle the question. [26]
06

How much interest in private credit funds is being paid in more debt rather than cash.

Payment-in-kind appears on no fund factsheet, and until this week it had to be pulled out of each fund's financial statements one at a time. [28]
07

Whether Norway's finance ministry accepts the $80 billion cut in US Treasuries.

It is a recommendation in a letter from the fund's manager, not a decision that has been taken. [14]
08

Whether the record US diesel price holds.

Phil Flynn, the analyst who reported the $5.85 record, argues the market may be near a peak if Ukraine stops striking Russian refineries. Russia's export ban runs to 30 September and nobody knows what follows it. [18]

04 Hope carry this

Greece's government debt is forecast to fall from 143.5% of the country's yearly output in March 2026 to 134.4% by the end of 2027. It ran a surplus before interest of 4.9% of its economy in 2025, while the rest of the European Union averaged a deficit of 1.0%.

Also true today

Cyprus expects its government debt to drop below 40% of the size of its economy by 2029, from 49.9% this year.
A bundle of 325 million euros of Portuguese home loans made in 2022 has recorded no defaults at all. Loans more than 90 days late come to 0.1% of what is still owed.
About 683,000 people joined the American labour force in August looking for work, and the share who could not find any stayed at 4.1%.