The Employment Situation: May 2006 — 2006-06-02

Nonfarm employment edged up in May (+75,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Employment continued to trend up in some service-providing industries and in mining, while retail trade and manufac- turing lost jobs. Average hourly earnings were up by 1 cent in May following a gain of 10 cents in April. Both the number of unemployed persons (7.0 million) and the unemployment rate (4.6 percent) were essentially unchanged in May. A year earlier, the unemployment rate was 5.1 percent. In May, the jobless rates for the major worker groups--adult men (4.2 per- cent), adult women (4.1 percent), teenagers (14.0 percent), whites (4.1 per- cent), blacks (8.9 percent), and Hispanics (5.0 percent)--showed little or no change over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 3.0 percent, not seasonally adjusted.