May Nonfarm Payrolls

May Nonfarm Payrolls
Updated: 05-Jun-26 09:19 ET

Highlights

Nonfarm payrolls surged by 172,000, aided by a 52,000 increase in government jobs; the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, along with the labor force participation rate (61.8%), and average hourly earnings increased 0.3% month-over-month.

Key Factors

May nonfarm payrolls increased by 172,000 (Briefing.com consensus: 96,000). The 3-month average for total nonfarm payrolls increased to 188,000 from 79,000. April nonfarm payrolls revised to 179,000 from 115,000. March nonfarm payrolls revised to 214,000 from 185,000.
May private sector payrolls increased by 120,000 (Briefing.com consensus: 89,000). April private sector payrolls revised to 177,000 from 123,000. March private sector payrolls revised to 202,000 from 190,000.
May unemployment rate was 4.3% (Briefing.com consensus: 4.3%) versus 4.3% in April. Persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 27.5% of the unemployed versus 25.3% in April. The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployed and underemployed workers, decreased to 8.1% from 8.2% in April.
May average hourly earnings were up 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus: 0.3%) on the heels of a 0.2% increase in April. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 3.4% versus 3.6% for the 12 months ending in April.
The average workweek in May was 34.3 hours (Briefing.com consensus: 34.3) versus 34.3 hours in April. The manufacturing workweek was unchanged at 40.4 hours. Factory overtime edged up to 3.1 hours.
The labor force participation rate held steady at 61.8%.
The employment-population ratio increased to 59.2% from 59.1% in April.

Big Picture

The key takeaway from the report is that it is manna for headline writers but still lacks some important sustenance to suggest it is a marker of an economy running on a full stomach. To wit: real average hourly earnings on a year-over-year basis are down 0.4%; there were job losses in the retail trade (-1,100), information (-2,000), and financial (-22,000) industries; and the percentage of unemployed workers for 27 weeks or more increased to 27.5% from 25.3%, which we will assume speaks to the difficulty of finding a new job with comparable compensation to the prior one.