May Jobs Report

The May jobs report came out this morning and it was a pretty good one. The U.S. economy added 390,000 net new jobs last month. Wall Street had been expecting 328,000.

The weak spot is that average hourly earnings rose by 0.3% last month. The unemployment rate held at 3.6%.

The unemployment rate is lower today than it was in every single month of the 1970s, 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s up to September 2019.

Job gains were broad-based. Leisure and hospitality led, adding 84,000 positions. Professional and business services rose by 75,000, transportation and warehousing contributed 47,000, and construction jobs increased by 36,000.

Other areas that saw notable gains included state government education (36,000), private education (33,000), health care (28,000), manufacturing (18,000) and wholesale trade (14,000).

Retail trade took a hit on the month, however, losing 61,000 in May, though the BLS noted that the sector remains 159,000 above its February 2020 pre-pandemic level.

Posted by on June 3rd, 2022 at 11:39 am


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