US Jobs Soar By 172K In May, Smashing Estimates In 4 Sigma Beat; Unemployment Rate Remains At 4.3%
With Wall Street expecting a strong - not great - number, and a modest decline from April's 115K, moments ago the BLS reported a shocker: in May the US added 172K jobs...
... not only a 4-sigma beat to the median estimate of 88K, but also above the highest estimate of 125K.
In a noteable change from previous months' downware revisions, the change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised up by 29,000, from +185,000 to +214,000, and the change for April was revised up by 64,000, from +115,000 to +179,000. With these revisions, employment in March and April combined is 93,000 higher than previously reported.
Turning to the Household survey, unlike previous months, we saw the number of employed people rise by 149K from 162.622K to 162.771K...
... with both the Household and Establishment survey rising for the first time in months.
The unemployment rate held at 4.3%, in line with expectations. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates showed little or no change in May for adult men (4.0%), adult women (3.8%), teenagers ...
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