US nonfarm payrolls fell in July
The US labor market showed mixed signals in July, with nonfarm payrolls declining by 23,000.
The decline was largely due to a drop of 53,000 government workers, which economists attribute to seasonal factors.
Private payrolls rose by 30,000, and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.1%, but the labor force participation rate edged down to 61.4%, off 0.7 percentage point this year alone, with 1.4 million people leaving the labor force.