After nine years of sustained low federal fund rates, there is a near universal expectation that the Federal Reserve will finally raise rates in September. Recently released US jobs data for July 2015 further adds the expectation for a raise.

The Fed has repeatedly said it will only raise interest rates once it is confident that job growth is on track to meet full employment

The figures announced by the US Department of Labour were not hugely impressive, with business adding 210,000 jobs in July, a decline from the 230,000 added in June 2015,while unemployment held steady at 5.3 percent. These numbers, however, are deemed sufficient for Federal Reserve officials to stick to the current expected plan to raise rates next month.

As The New York Times reported, “While not as robust as the gains recorded in May and June, Friday’s Labour Department report came in within 10,000 jobs of what forecasters had predicted, a notable feat of consistency in an economy that employs nearly 150 million people.” Likewise, according to the Financial Times, “traders expressed confidence that “rates would go up next month, with federal funds futures implying a 58 per cent probability of an increase after the US central bank next meets, compared with roughly 50 per cent earlier, according to Bloomberg data.”

The Fed has repeatedly said it will only raise interest rates once it is confident that job growth is on track to meet full employment. US jobs data for July may only be at a level deemed sufficient for July, when looked at in the long term, figures have been positive. As the US Secretary of Labour, Thomas E. Perez points out in a news release, the uninspiring July figures come as “part of 65 consecutive months of private-sector job growth, to the tune of 13.0 million jobs overall.” The recovery, he continues, “is broad-based, with employment gains happening throughout the economy. Job growth is more widespread across industries than at any point since 1998.”