The May jobs report is a big disappointment for workers and bad news for Trump

[DonViejo]

Weak job growth caught economists by surprise.

By Alexia Fernández Campbell
@[e-mail]

Jun 7, 2019, 10:50am EDT

-snip-

The sudden drop from April, when the economy added 263,000 jobs, plus slower overall job growth so far in 2019, suggests that the pool of available workers is draining and the US economy is reaching full employment. (Though revisions to the report later in the month may alter these numbers.)

The super-low unemployment rate, for example, didn’t budge in May from 3.6 percent. That’s still the lowest rate of unemployed Americans recorded since December 1969.

Yet the small pool of available workers still hasn’t translated to much higher pay: Workers only got an average hourly pay raise of 6 cents in May, the same increase they got a month earlier.

The new jobs report shows that the US economy is continuing to expand, but without middle- and working-class families seeing much of the benefit. Job security is the one advantage employees can count on these days.

Low unemployment and high job creation means that nearly every American who wants to work and is able to has snagged a job by now. And those who lose their jobs, or decide to leave, probably won’t have a hard time finding another position.

-snip-

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/7/18656343/may-jobs-report-2019-wage-growth