August Jobs Report: What to Watch for?

"In some professions – generally those that require few skills and relatively pleasant working conditions – there is a huge oversupply of candidates," Pollak said.

Over the past year, ZipRecruiter, for example, has received more than 8.1 million applications, an average of 118 responses for each position. But the 136,000 jobs listed for warehouse employees had close to 9.3 million job applicants, or just 68 jobs per job.

Look for which sectors are the most growing. Measurements of manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities published by the Institute for Supply Management this week have been strong, suggesting overall growth.

Switch from part time to full time

One measure of the tight labor market is the underemployment rate – part-time workers who would rather work full-time but have not been able to find such a job. These people are not included in the most widely cited unemployment rate, but to a greater extent than the one published by the Labor Department, which also includes potential workers too discouraged to look for work.

"In the last five months, the economy has converted about 600,000 part-time workers into full-time," said Michael Gapen, chief economist of the United States at Barclays. This reduced the rate to 7.5% in July, reaching the levels seen in the early 2000s. An additional reduction would provide stronger evidence of the amount of free time remaining in the labor market.

The quirks of August

August is a weird month. There were more business days (23) last month than in July or September. For employees, the same stable salary on a larger number of working days will be considered a lower hourly wage.

In recent years, the month of August proved difficult to measure accurately at the beginning. Over the last five years, each first estimate of employment growth in August was then revised upward – an average of 38,000 jobs, according to High Frequency Economics.

And as always, the report of the Department of Labor provides only a temporary and incomplete overview of the economy. The August estimates will be revised twice in the coming months.