The Employment Situation: May 2002 — 2002-06-07

Both payroll employment and the unemployment rate were little changed in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Employment rose in the services industry and edged down in manu- facturing. Most other major industries showed no significant change. The number of unemployed persons (8.4 million) and the unemployment rate (5.8 percent) were little changed over the month. The May unemployment rate is 1.9 percentage points above its most recent low of 3.9 percent in October 2000, and the number of unemployed persons is 2.8 million higher. In May, the unemployment rates for blacks (10.2 percent) and Hispanics (7.0 percent) declined. The rates for the other major worker groups--adult men (5.2 percent), adult women (5.2 percent), teenagers (16.9 percent), and whites (5.2 percent)--were little changed. (See tables A-1 and A-2.) The number of long-term unemployed persons--those unemployed 27 weeks or longer--rose by 142,000 in May, following increases of similar size in March and April.