US Adds 339,000 Jobs In May, Unemployment Rate At 3.7%

US employers added 339,000 jobs in April, way above economists' expectations, while the jobless rate moved up to 3.7% from a previous 3.4%, according to Labor Department data on Friday that conceivably made it more challenging for the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd June, 2023) US employers added 339,000 jobs in April, way above economists' expectations, while the jobless rate moved up to 3.7% from a previous 3.4%, according to Labor Department data on Friday that conceivably made it more challenging for the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates.

Economists polled by US media had expected a jobs growth of just around 180,000 for April, from a previously published 253,000 for April which the Labor Department now revised up to 294,000. Fed officials have said employment and wage growth have to cool significantly to effectively restrain the worst inflation the United States has encountered in four decades.

Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) hit 40-year highs in June 2022, expanding at an annual rate of 9.

1%. Since then, it has slowed, growing at just 4.9% per annum in March, for its slowest expansion since October 2021.

The Fed's favorite price indicator, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index, grew by 4.4% in April. Even so, that was more than double the Fed's 2% tolerance for inflation annually.

The Fed, in response to runaway inflation since the end of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2022, has raised interest rates by 10 times, adding a total of 5% to the previous 0.25%. Until Friday's overwhelmingly strong jobs data for May, there had been speculation that the central bank could pause on rate hikes from June onwards.