By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Job creation in the U.S. slowed sharply in August as the spread of Covid-19 across southern states and the big coastal cities increasingly acted as a brake on hiring.
Nonfarm payrolls expanded by only 235,000 through the middle of last month, the Department of Labor said on Friday. That was far short of expectations for a gain of 750,000.
The numbers all but rule out an early move by the Federal Reserve to start running down the bond purchases that have been the mainstay of its monetary support for the economy since the first wave of the pandemic.