The US Embassy and its affiliated offices will be closed to the public today, in observance of Labor Day, an American holiday.
The embassy on Roxas Boulevard in Manila and its affiliated offices will resume their regular services on Tuesday, September 6.
Agence France Presse reported that the US labor market slowed precipitously in August but continued a six-year streak of monthly job creation, citing figures released Friday by the labor department.
The economy added 151,000 new positions for the month, a sharp drop from July’s revised total of 275,000 new non-farm positions and also well below analyst expectations.
Leading up to Friday’s disclosure, markets had been intently awaiting the new numbers as a signal of looming interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
However, it was not immediately clear how August’s employment results were likely to influence the Fed’s thinking. Analysts disagreed as to whether the jobs numbers presaged a rate hike as soon as this month.
As August’s added jobs were easily absorbed by the growth in the size of the labor force, the results appeared to tread water: The unemployment rate remained steady at 4.9 percent for the third month in a row. The number of long-term unemployed was also unchanged at two million people.
The numbers came as US President Barack Obama he aded to China to join world leaders at the Group of 20 economic summit and as world leaders faced calls to stimulate dismal global growth. The International Monetary Fund said Thursday it expected to downgrade its US economic forecast for 2016 next month.