US added 272,000 jobs in May, much more than expected

The US added 272,000 jobs in May, much more than the 180,000 economists polled by Bloomberg were expecting. The unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.0% from 3.9%. Average hourly earnings also rose more than expected, 0.4% month-over-month versus the expected 0.3%. Year-over-year, average hourly earnings rose 4.1% compared to a 3.9% estimate.

Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith and Brad Smith report the breaking data.

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This post was written by Stephanie Mikulich.

Video Transcript

Massive beat of four jobs.

272,000.

The estimate was for 100 and 80,000.

When you take a look at the unemployment rate ticking higher to 4%.

So that was 1/10 of a percent higher than what we saw the pre the prior reading and 1/10 of a percent higher than what the street had been forecasting average hourly earnings on a month over month basis taking higher by 4/10 of a percent.

When you take a look at that year over year comparison rising 4.1% hotter than what the street had been anticipating labor force participation rate coming in at 62.5% which is just below what the street’s expectation was.

And also comparing it to that prior reading of 62.7%.

So and a much hotter than expected print here when you take a look at some of the revisions that we are getting revisions here to the downside for the prior month.

100 and 75 was revised lower to 100 and 65,000.

So revised lower by just about 10,000 here.

But again that headline number 272,000 much hotter than the streets expectation of 100 and 80.

Yeah, I’m taking a look at some of the sectors here, employment continuing to trend up in several industries led by health care, government, leisure and hospitality, and then professional, scientific and technical services as well here.

And then just taking kind of a a bit of a deeper dive into what you’ve mentioned here, the labor force participation rate 62.5% here.

That was essentially li little change there in May.

And then long uh one of the other huge things that we got to point out to here as I was continuing to look at some of those sectors, health care, adding 68,000 jobs during the month of May.

We’ll have more of a breakdown in the sectors in just a little bit.

Yeah.

And, and this could potentially be concerning for the fed on a number of fronts.

But I think more important.

Um One of the most important reasons here when you take a look at that headline number, clearly much stronger than expected.

When you take a look at the fact that the unemployment rate ticking up as well as that labor force participation rate falling clearly, that could be a bit worrisome here for the fed ahead of the meeting and next