US adds 339,000 jobs in May, unemployment rises to 3.7%

Number of unemployed people increased by 440,000 to 6.1M last month

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - The US economy added 339,000 jobs in May, coming much higher than market estimates, but the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 3.7%, the Labor Department announced on Friday.

The market expectation for nonfarm payrolls was a 180,000 gain in May.

Job additions for April were revised up by 41,000 from 253,000 to 294,000, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate, on the other hand, surprisingly rose 0.3 percentage point to 3.7% in May, from 3.4% in April.

The market estimate for the figure was to come in at 3.5%.

The number of unemployed people in the US rose by 440,000 to reach 6.1 million in May.

Both the labor force participation rate at 62.6% and the employment-population ratio at 60.3% remained unchanged last month.

Kaynak:

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