The U.S. labor market remained hot in May, even as tighter monetary conditions and persistent inflation stoked worries of an economic slowdown.
The economy created 390,000 news jobs last month with the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.6%.
Here are the key numbers from the Labor Department’s latest report compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Nonfarm payrolls: Plus-390,000 versus plus-318,000 expected, and a revised plus-436,000 in April
- Unemployment rate: 3.6% versus 3.5% expected, and 3.6% in April
- Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: Plus-0.3% versus plus-0.4% expected, and plus-0.3% in April
- Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: Plus-5.2% versus plus-5.2% expected and plus-5.5% in April
The latest data reflects a slightly slower pace of hiring from April, which saw payrolls rise by a revised 436,000. Over the last three months job gains have now averaged 408,000; in the three-month period ended in April, nonfarm payroll growth averaged 516,000.
Although growth slightly abated in May, overall job growth remains robust on a historical basis. Throughout 2019, for instance, payroll growth averaged about 164,000 per month.
Prior to the May report, the U.S. economy had added at least 400,000 jobs each month over the last year, bringing employment within 1% of pre-pandemic levels.
Click here to see the full report from Alexandra Semenova at Yahoo Finance.
