Commissioner's Statement on the Employment Situation — 2003-06-06

Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Labor market conditions were little changed in May. The unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 6.1 percent, and nonfarm payroll employment remained at 130.1 million. As previously announced, BLS implemented several changes in our establishment survey this month, including a new industrial classification system, concurrent seasonal adjustment, and completion of the conversion to a probability-based sample. Today's release reflects all these changes; historical monthly time series data are available on the BLS Web site. Further information about these changes and their impact can be found in the Employment Situation news release and in articles that will appear in our Employment and Earnings publication and on our Web site. The new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is a fundamentally different way of classifying business establishments that better reflects today's economy.