Turning to the very strong labor market, private payroll employment has been increasing at an average of nearly 400,000 a month over the last several months. Unemployment rose two tenths of a percent in August to 3.7 percent, in part reflecting an increase in the labor force participation rate, but still stands at a very low level.
The increase in participation was welcome news, but this rate is still far below that achieved before the pandemic, when unemployment was roughly as low as today. We are facing  -5worker shortages in many sectors of the economy. Job openings have started to decline a bit but remain very elevated.