US adds 559,000 jobs in May as hiring rebounds

Washington: US employers added 559,000 jobs in May, rebounding from April's hiring slowdown, with the unemployment rate dropping to 5.8 per cent, the Labour Department reported.

The latest data followed upwardly revised job growth of 278,000 in April and an upwardly revised increase of 785,000 in March, indicating a bumpy road in labour market recovery, reports Xinhua news agency.

In May, job gains were notable in leisure and hospitality, public and private education, as well as health care and social assistance, according to the report released on Friday by the Department's Bureau of Labour Statistics.

Employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 292,000, as pandemic-related restrictions continued to ease in some parts of the country, the report showed, while noting that the figure is still down by 2.5 million, or 15 per cent, since February 2020.

Employment in local government education, state government education and private education increased by 53,000, 50,000 and 41,000, respectively, but is still lower than the pre-pandemic level.

Construction employment edged down by 20,000 in May, reflecting a job loss of 17,000 in non-residential specialty trade contractors, the report showed.

Employment in retail trade declined by 6,000, which is 411,000 below its pre-pandemic level.

The unemployment rate dropped by 0.3 percentage point to 5.8 per cent. The measure was down considerably from its recent high in April 2020, but remained well above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5 per cent.

Despite the improvement in the pandemic-ravaged labour market, some 9.3 million people remained unemployed in May, well above the pre-pandemic level of 5.7 million, according to the report.

The labour force participation rate, meanwhile, was little changed at 61.6 per cent in May, which is 1.7 percentage points lower than in February 2020.

It has remained within a narrow range of 61.4 per cent to 61.7 per cent since June 2020, the report noted.

The monthly employment report was released one day after payroll data company Automatic Data Processing reported that private companies in the US added 978,000 jobs in May, posting the biggest gain in 11 months.