It's a good number: 280,000 jobs were added in May, besting economists' consensus prediction of 225,000. Today's jobs report also revealed the unemployment rate ticked up from 5.4% to 5.5%, the Wall Street Journal reports. The new jobs numbers for March and April show an overall gain: 119,000 jobs were added in March, up from the previous estimate of 85,000, while April's previous estimate of 223,000 was revised slightly downward to 221,000.
Some other numbers for comparison:
- The past 12 months have seen an average monthly gain of 251,000 jobs.
- The past three months have seen an average monthly gain of 207,000 jobs.
- In 2015 so far, the monthly average has been 202,000 new jobs; last year, that number was 260,000.
The report is being received generally well, with the
Journal's Jeffrey Sparshott noting that the "latest figures suggest the economy is regaining some of the momentum lost ... during the first quarter," and the
AP noting that the new jobs number shows "that the economy is back on track after starting 2015 in a slump." (More
jobs report stories.)
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