Amplify: May Jobs Report Brings Positive News on Employment, Wage Growth, and the Biden Economy

Jun 12

Continuing to show the strength of the Biden economy, the Department of Labor’s May report showed unexpected strength, with the addition of 272,000 jobs in the last month. That figure is well above what economists expected and represents a significant increase over the 232,000 average monthly increases during the past year.

Highlights:

The education and health sector led the hiring increase with the addition of 86,000 jobs. The growth was driven by the needs of a longer-living population and the increased access that people now have to healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.
In addition, the leisure and entertainment industry, which had been so hard-hit by the COVID pandemic added 42,00 jobs. These numbers are expected to grow even further during an expected record summer travel season.
Americans’ average hourly earnings in May also rose faster than expected -- up by 0.4% from the previous month, and up 4.1% over the past year. This appears to be due to workers’ continuing strong bargaining power since, at the end of April, there were approximately 1.4 unfilled positions for each person seeking employment.
Economists reacting to the May jobs report see lower odds of an economic slowdown.

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