U.S. Economy Adds 175K Jobs in May, Unemployment Rate Ticks Up

The Labor Department reports non-farm payrolls rose by 175,000 in May, beating Wall Street’s expectations by 5,000. The unemployment rate ticked up to 7.6% for the month from 7.5% in April. The Labor force participation rate came in at 63.4% from 63.3% in April. U.S. stock-index futures advanced mildly on the back of the report.

As predicted yesterday, the jobs that are being created are not coming from  opportunities that are tradition builders of the middle class. Professional and business services, which are typically higher paying jobs that require higher education, have continued their trend of consisting of part-time opportunities:

Professional and business services added 57,000 jobs in May. Within this industry, employment continued to trend up in temporary help services (+26,000), computer systems design and related services (+6,000), and architectural and engineering services (+5,000). Employment in professional and business services has grown by 589,000 over the past year.

Lower class job in retail and service related industries, however, have continued to make gains, which means there is one class making enough money to pay for services and one class who has the opportunity to wait on them:

Within leisure and hospitality, employment in food services and drinking places continued to expand, increasing by 38,000 in May and by 337,000 over the past year. Retail trade employment increased by 28,000 in May. The industry added an average of 20,000 jobs per month over the prior 12 months. In May, general merchandise stores continued to add jobs (+10,000).

Lucky us. Unfortunately, for the middle class employment in other major industries, including mining and logging, construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, and financial activities, showed little or no change over the month. These are the jobs that build and strengthen the American middle class, and they are not available.

Summary From the May BLS report – or Read Full May BLS Report:

Household Survey Data

Both the number of unemployed persons, at 11.8 million, and the unemployment rate, at 7.6 percent, were essentially unchanged in May.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (7.2 percent), adult women (6.5 percent), teenagers (24.5 percent), whites (6.7 percent), blacks (13.5 percent), and Hispanics (9.1 percent) showed little or no change in May.

The jobless rate for Asians was 4.3 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) In May, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was unchanged at 4.4 million.

These individuals accounted for 37.3 percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed has declined by 1.0 million.

The civilian labor force rose by 420,000 to 155.7 million in May; however, the labor force participation rate was little changed at 63.4 percent. Over the year, the labor force participation rate has declined by 0.4 percentage point.

The employment-population ratio was unchanged in May at 58.6 percent and has shown little movement, on net, over the past year.

In May, the number of persons employed part-time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was unchanged at 7.9 million.

These individuals were working part-time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

In May, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down from 2.4 million a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.)

These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months.

They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 780,000 discouraged workers in May, little changed from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.)

Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.4 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in May had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

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