May 2016 Employment Situation — 2016-06-03

The unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 4.7 percent in May, and nonfarm payroll employment changed little (+38,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in health care. Mining continued to lose jobs, and employment in information decreased due to a strike. In May, the unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 4.7 percent, and the number of unemployed persons declined by 484,000 to 7.4 million. Both measures had shown little movement from August to April. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.3 percent), adult women (4.2 percent), Whites (4.1 percent), and Hispanics (5.6 percent) declined in May. The rates for teenagers (16.0 percent), Blacks (8.2 percent), and Asians (4.1 percent) showed little or no change. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) declined by 178,000 to 1.9 million in May.