In a 17-month streak of monthly job gains, The Department of Labor announced 390,000 jobs were added in May, slightly below April’s 438,000 job gains, reports The New York Times.
For the third month in a row, the unemployment rate stayed around 3.6 percent, a record-setting low. The average hourly earnings rose by 0.3 percent and were 5.2 percent higher than in May of last year.
The New York Times asserts record levels of consumer spending have propelled the current state of business expansion and job creation, caused by the need to meet consumer demand for a myriad of goods and services.
Despite the good news on the job market side, inflation continues to pose a problem for the economy. The Commerce Department reported a drop in personal savings as a percentage of disposable income to its lowest rate since 2008.
“We’ve got to get back to price stability so that we can have a labor market where people’s wages aren’t being eaten up by inflation,” Fed chair Jerome H. Powell said in a statement last month.
Amid the rampant growth in the job market, the Biden Administration, Fed, and economists advocate for a slowdown in job growth, which, in “normal” times, would be a problem; however, may offer a solution to many current economic problems.
“Where we are going to is a period of more stable growth, more resilient growth, that should look different than that historically fast recovery,” Brian Deese, an economic adviser to President Biden, said in an interview when referring to a shift toward a “cooling” economy. The administration’s goal is a recovery “that generates more economic opportunities and more economic security for middle-class families than the pre-pandemic economy did.” Full Story
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