The New Normal

This morning's jobs report fit squarely into the "new normal" we've seen in recent months, with the economy adding 175,000 new jobs in May. Over the past 12 months, the economy has added an average of 172,000 jobs per month, so we were right on that mark in May. Nevertheless, the headline unemployment figure ticked up to 7.6 percent.

One thing that has helped that headline number in recent months is that the number of jobs added in prior months has been frequently revised upward. That didn't happen with May's report. The jobs figure for March was revised upward from 138,000 to 142,000, but April's notched down from 165,000 to 149,000. That's a net loss from the previous two months of 12,000 jobs.

The strongest industries in this morning's report were professional and business services, which added 57,000 jobs in May; food services and drinking places, which added 38,000; and retail trade, which added 28,000. The biggest job-losing category was the federal government, which dropped 14,000 jobs.