The figure will provide some relief to the White House after the April report, but it’s well short of the pace predicted by many economists earlier this year.
The U.S. economy added 559,000 jobs in May, well below Wall Street expectations, stirring up further questions about what is holding back a stronger recovery from the Covid-19 epidemic.
The figure marked a bounce back from a disappointing April number, but it won’t erase concerns about whether generous federal benefits are keeping Americans from rejoining the labor force or whether the Biden administration and Congress need to do more to light a fire under the economy.
The number is likely to provide partisan fodder for everyone: It was far from the blockbuster gain that many expected but wasn’t quite as awful as April, when fewer than half as many new jobs were created.
“This is a lukewarm report that will only serve to stoke fears about labor market shortages,” Aberdeen Standard Investments Deputy Chief Economist James McCann said in a note to clients on Friday.
The figure will provide some relief to the White House after the April report, but it’s well short of the pace predicted by many economists earlier this year. If these modest gains keep up, it will take far longer to get the economy back to where it was before the virus hit than many economists expected.
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The U.S. economy added 559,000 jobs in May. That's\ well below Wall Street expectations, stirring up further questions about what is holding back a stronger recovery from the Covid-19 epidemic.https://t.co/hI0rxBnMkl
— POLITICO (@politico) June 4, 2021
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