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发帖数: 29846 | 1 U.S. job growth slowed sharply in May, a sign of a sputtering recovery that
may increase pressure on the Federal Reserve to prop up the economy.
Nonfarm payrolls grew by a lackluster 69,000 last month, the Labor
Department said Friday, the smallest gain in a year. The unemployment rate,
obtained by a separate survey of U.S. households, ticked higher by one-tenth
of a percentage point to 8.2%, the first increase since June 2011.
"This is what a jobless recovery looks like," said Nomura Securities
economist Jeffrey Greenberg.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a gain of 155,000 in
payrolls and for the jobless rate to remain at 8.1%.
Markets Pulse
That six-month average is a fine data point, but shows the three bad months
came after the three good months. Job growth is slowing -- sharply -- no
matter how you average out the numbers.
Compounding an already weak report, March and April payroll gains were
revised down by a combined 49,000. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 77,000 in
April and 143,000 in March.
The unemployment rate has fallen sharply since August, when it was 9.1%. But
, even though companies are hiring, the pace of job creation remains well
below figures at the start of the year. The economy added an average of 226,
000 jobs a month in the first quarter.
Some of the strong gains at the start of the year may be related to milder-
than-normal winter weather, and the recent string of weaker reports may be a
payback. Still, May's numbers suggest the labor market is deteriorating.
Nearly three years after the recession ended, the economy has failed to gain
traction amid broad uncertainty related to Europe's debt crisis, the
potential for steep U.S. tax hikes and spending cuts next year, and signs of
slower growth in developing countries.
The U.S. economy grew only 1.9% in the first quarter of the year and
unemployment has remained stubbornly high.
All together, the latest data are a blow to President Barack Obama's re-
election campaign, where the economy is a central issue.
The White House's chief economist Friday said Obama's policies are helping
the U.S. recover, and advised against reading too much into the latest jobs
report. "Problems in the job market were long in the making and will not be
solved overnight," said Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of
Economic Advisers.
Republicans pounced on the figures as evidence that White House efforts to
help the economy aren't working.
"President Obama's failed policies have made high unemployment and a weak
economy the sad, new normal for families and small businesses," House
Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said.
Federal Reserve officials have said that they expect only gradual
improvement in the U.S. labor market the rest of this year. The central bank
is forecasting an unemployment rate somewhere between 7.8% and 8.0% by the
end of 2012.
The poor May jobs report is likely to renew focus on the Fed's
unconventional measures to help the recovery.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is scheduled to testify before a Congressional
panel June 7 on the economic outlook, and the central bank's policy-making
committee next meets June 19-20.
A $400 billion Fed bond-buying program, meant to reduce long-term interest
rates, ends this month. Known as "Operation Twist," the effort has extended
the maturity of the central bank's Treasury holdings and reinvested in other
expiring securities.
The May employment report "reinforces our call that Operation Twist will be
extended at this meeting," said David Semmens, senior U.S. economist at
Standard Chartered. "We may even see more talk of the need for more
quantitative easing."
At the least, Friday's report likely ensures the central bank won't veer
from its plan to keep short-term rates low until late 2014.
The Labor Department said private companies accounted for all of the growth
in payrolls, adding 82,000 jobs in May. Governments, meanwhile, cut payrolls
by 13,000.
Employment increased in health care, transportation and warehousing,
wholesale trade and manufacturing.
The construction industry lost 28,000 jobs.
Average wages inched ahead by 2 cents to $23.41 an hour, while the workweek
slid by 0.1 hour to 34.4 hours.
A broader measure of unemployment--which includes job seekers as well as
those stuck in part-time jobs--rose to 14.8% in May from 14.5% in April. |
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