WASHINGTON — Measuring the calm before the storm, the Labor Department reported Friday that the economy enjoyed healthy pre-Katrina job growth in August while the unemployment rate fell to a four-year low of 4.9%.
But Hurricane Katrina will probably end the economy's 27-month streak of job gains. Katrina's effects -- not only on the Gulf Coast regions where it struck but also on the national economy via higher energy prices and disrupted ports -- could result in the loss of as many as 500,000 jobs in September, analysts said.
"From Boom to Gloom" was the headline that Wells Fargo senior economist Eugenio J. Aleman put over his weekly economic analysis.
U.S. employers generated a net gain of 169,000 jobs in August, compared with an average of 189,000 for the previous 12 months. The government also revised Friday its data for June and July, increasing the payroll growth during that two-month period by 44,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate, down from 5% in July, was the lowest since the month before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Some economists said the economy, almost four years into the recovery from the 2001 recession, was better positioned to withstand an external shock than it was after the 2001 attacks, when the country was already in recession. But other analysts said the recovery had grown precarious and Katrina might put it over the edge.
David Kelly, managing director of Putnam Investments in Boston, estimated that 200,000 to 400,000 of the 1 million workers in the 11 hardest-hit counties of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama would have no jobs to return to at least for a while. That estimate seemed to be in the middle of the range.
Toward the gloomy end of the spectrum, Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., predicted that the September report would show a loss of 500,000 jobs nationally.
Toward the other end, William Hummer, chief economist of Wayne Hummer Investments in Chicago, said the nation as a whole might gain jobs in September, even though he ratcheted down his estimate of 2005 economic growth to 3.4% from 3.7% to account for Katrina.
"The number of people who will lose jobs is insignificant on a national scale," he said.
Hummer, however, did not share the widely held view that the economy was well-positioned to absorb Katrina's blow. He said a combination of factors, including record oil prices, rising interest rates and a personal saving rate that turned negative in July, already threatened the expansion that began at the end of 2001.
