US jobs power back

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Friday night’s US jobs report was a cracker showing that nation weathering the shale bust nicely:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 280,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and health care. Mining employment continued to decline.

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised from +85,000 to +119,000, and the change for April was revised from +223,000 to +221,000. With these revisions, employment gains in March and April combined were 32,000 more than previously reported.

In May, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 8 cents to $24.96. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.3 percent.

All charts courtesy of Calculated Risk:

PayrollMay2015
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The unemployment rate is still falling:

UnemployMay2015

Year over year job gains are still strong:

EmployYoYMay2015

The analytic series are improving from low levels:

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employPopMay2015

The all important average hourly earnings may be trending up a bit:

WagesMay2015

But there’s little risk of any imminent breakout with plenty of shadow slack in the labour market:PartTimeMay2015

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That’s as good a US jobs report as I’ve see this year. I’ll bring forward my US rate hike forecast to Q4 this year. OIS pricing is now for the first hike to happen in six months.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.