It was a second sizable miss of analyst expectations after a big disappointment in April. Economists had predicted 650,000 jobs added in May.
The labor force participation rate was more or less flat in May at 61.6%, showing that the unemployment rate went down because people found jobs and not only because they dropped out of the workforce.
“It’s a month at a time,” Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told CNN’s Poppy Harlow Friday morning, adding, “there’s no question we still have work to do.”
The biggest job gains happened in the the leisure and hospitality industry with 292,000 jobs added back, mostly at restaurants and bars.
As things are going more back to normal, with non-pandemic health care needs and more in-person schooling, the health care and education sectors also added jobs. Construction and retail shedded jobs.
The weird shape of the recovery
For example, the unemployment rate is falling in part because workers are finding jobs, but people are also leaving the workforce. Even though joblessness rates fell across demographic groups, many of them also saw drops in labor force participation.
Unemployment rates for non-White workers are still much higher than for the White population, which stands at 5.1%.
“Even with today’s gains, the Americans who have long been harmed by the country’s deep structural racism and sexism are still facing the worst unemployment rates,” said Michael Madowitz, economist at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
The May data showed hourly earnings rose by 15 cents to $30.33.
“I think the unemployment insurance and the $300 that people are getting right now is allowing the opportunity to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head as their jobs come back, as their industries open up,” said Labor Secretary Walsh.
