The US jobs report for August landed on Friday with 162,000 new positions. Economists had penciled in roughly 53,000, so the figure came in almost three times as high. The gold price reacted at once and shed close to 100 dollars in short order. A few hours later gold is already back at 4,438.39 dollars per troy ounce, around 0.8 percent lower on the day, and silver at 66.17 dollars, down 1.2 percent. For anyone looking to sell old gold, jewellery or silver, that rebound says at least as much as the drop itself.
What the jobs report actually said
The news release from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that nonfarm payroll employment rose by 162,000 in August and that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1 percent. That is the strongest month in five months.
The revisions matter just as much. June was revised up by 11,000, to 31,000. July was revised up by 44,000, flipping it from a loss of 23,000 jobs to a gain of 21,000. Together those two months delivered 55,000 more jobs than previously reported. That summer weakness was exactly the argument advanced by those who wanted a pause in rate rises. The argument has largely gone.
The growth came mainly from food services, good for 59,000 jobs, and from local government education, good for 42,000. The information sector lost 23,000. Wages rose by 0.3 percent to 37.75 dollars an hour, and by 3.1 percent year on year.
Why strong employment figures knock the gold price back
Gold yields nothing on its own. It pays no interest and no dividend, whereas a US government bond does. If the labour market shows strength, the central bank has room to raise rates further. Government bond yields then climb, gold becomes comparatively more expensive to hold, and investors shift money out of the metal.
That is exactly what happened on Friday afternoon. The market priced probability of a rate rise at the meeting of 15 and 16 September climbed from roughly 50 percent to roughly 60 percent. The policy rate currently stands at 3.50 to 3.75 percent. On Thursday that same probability had fallen, after governor Christopher Waller of the US central bank said he wanted to leave rates unchanged if the data showed further cooling of inflation. Gold gained 2.36 percent on that remark. One jobs report later, half of that optimism has evaporated. That the interest rate channel weighs more heavily than the headlines from the Middle East is something we wrote about earlier this week, and this report is the sharpest confirmation of it.
Takeaway: looks like the Fed is likely to hike rates at its September meeting unless the August CPI surprises to the downside.
Why gold still held above 4,400 dollars
The fall stayed contained, and that is the most striking thing about the day. Gold briefly dipped below 4,400 dollars and then crept back towards 4,440 dollars. Two things explain that. The unemployment rate did not fall, it simply stayed at 4.1 percent, which makes the report less convincing than the headline figure suggests. And a large part of the growth sat in food services and local government education, two sectors where seasonal effects weigh heavily.
Do put that level in perspective. Gold is still trading below the late August peak of around 4,696 dollars and far below the record of late January 2026, when the price reached 5,589.38 dollars. How such a daily price is converted into euros is explained on our page about the gold price.
What this means if you want to sell old gold
The practical lesson is that a 100 dollar move in a single day has become ordinary. Anyone planning a sale around the figure in the morning paper is planning around a number that had already changed by the afternoon. The price on the day itself is the only figure that says anything about your settlement.
For your own items, three other things in fact weigh more heavily than the jobs report. The actual purity determines most of the proceeds, because an 18 carat chain contains 75 percent gold and a 9 carat one barely 37.5 percent. The exchange rate counts, because the world market quotes in dollars and you are paid in euros. And the weight covers the precious metal only, without stones or clasps. How to estimate that yourself at home is set out under gold check and sell old gold.
The gold price lost almost 100 dollars on Friday and has already won most of it back. Swings like that say little about the value of your items. Ask for the price on the day itself and have your gold weighed and tested first.
Next week’s inflation figure will decide
Attention now shifts to the US inflation figure for August, due next week. Economists call that report the decisive factor for the meeting of 16 September. If inflation comes in well, the central bank can press the pause button despite the strong employment figures. If it disappoints, a rise becomes close to certain.
With silver all of this cuts more sharply. The silver market is smaller and more than half of the metal is consumed by industry, so the price reacts more keenly to expectations about growth and interest rates. Anyone with silver cutlery or old jewellery at home therefore notices bigger differences from day to day. What counts during weighing and which items are solid silver is explained under sell silver. We publish the price for every working day on the site.