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| US wage growth hits nine-year high | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Annual wage growth hit a nine-year high in the US last month as the economy created more jobs than expected. | |
| Average hourly earnings rose by 0.4% in August, pushing the annual rate of increase to 2.9% - the fastest pace since June 2009. | |
| Hiring in the construction sector and in professional services helped the economy to add 201,000 jobs last month. | |
| The strong wage growth is likely to strengthen expectations of another rise in US interest rates later this month. | |
| The US Federal Reserve, which has already raised rates twice this year, is due to meet on 25-26 September. | |
| The dollar rose in response to the data. The dollar index - which measures the greenback against a group of major currencies - hit a two-day high. | |
| Upward momentum | |
| August's job creation figure, published by the Labor Department, was higher than July's downwardly revised total of 147,000. | |
| The revisions to June and July's figures meant 50,000 fewer jobs were created than previously estimated. | |
| The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.9%. | |
| Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: "Wages aren't yet rising fast enough to scare the Fed, but the expectation that further gains are in the pipeline, given the lag from falling unemployment, explains policymakers' intentions to keep hiking. | |
| "Unemployment was unchanged in August, but the monthly data are very erratic and the trend is still falling." |