Loving Labor

Employers created 559,000 net new jobs in May, dropping the unemployment rate to 5.8%, its average rate since modern data collection began in 1948. From 1980-1999 the average was 6.5%, from 2000-2019 it was 5.9%. Prior to Sars-Cov-2 it was 3.5%, and the jobs deficit remains 7.6 million short of the 2/20 pre-pandemic peak. Indicating workers are hard to get, the labor force participation rate fell from 61.7% to 61.6%.