More bad news on the employment front this morning as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only 69,000 jobs were added to the economy in the month of May. At the same time, April's already disappointing figure of 115,000 new jobs was revised downward to 77,000, and the overall unemployment figure crept upward from 8.1 percent to 8.2 percent. In the first quarter of the year, the average monthly jobs gain had been 226,000.
Transportation and warehousing was the sector providing the biggest number of new jobs, at 36,000, followed by health care at 33,000. Professional and business services, which has been a bright spot in the employment reports in recent months, was described as "essentially unchanged." The sector dropping the most jobs was construction, which was off by 28,000.
Economists estimate that the nation needs to add around 125,000 jobs a month simply to keep pace with population growth. Seeing the number of new jobs added fall below that for the second month in a row is very disappointing.
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