–May Payrolls +431K; Unemployment Rate 9.698%

By Denny Gulino

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Like a steroid-fueled home-run record, the May
jobs report went into the books with an asterisk because without 2010
Census workers, it showed an unexpected weakness, nearly no change.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday morning reported that without
the 411,000 temporary census workers, there would have been only a
20,000 gain in payroll slots after seasonal adjustment. Expectations had
been for more than six times that improvement. The May unemployment rate
edged back down a tenth to the 9.7% it was in March.

The actual change before adjustment was a total increase of
1,090,000 and without the injection of census workers, a gain of
711,000. The prior two months’ revisions netted to a 22,000 decline for
payrolls.

A big factor in the May weakness was the construction category’s
35,000-job loss, and the losses “were pretty widespread within the
industry,” Tom Nardone, the BLS chief of the employment section, told
Market News International in a pre-publication interview. Without
seasonal adjustment, “construction had a pretty big increase, 151,000.”

In the previous couple of months of construction increases, he
said, the gains were in non-residential construction. In May, however,
even that was negative. “If you take the longer view,” Nardone said,
“construction continues to be weak.”

The other major factor in May’s overall weakness, he said, was the
performance of the health sector, adding only 8,000 jobs after
adjustment.

The May gain was the largest since March 2000, the last time a
month had a big injection of census workers. The number of census
workers added for the May survey week was exactly what the Census Bureau
had said it would be earlier in the week, no surprise since “we get our
numbers from Census,” Nardone said.

As MNI reported earlier in the week, the change in Census 2010
hiring was about 417,000, which after Puerto Rico was subtracted, came
out to be the 411,000 in the jobs report.

If there is a bright spot in the May report it is the rare
reduction in the number of persons working only part-time for economic
reasons, a 343,000 decline. But the number of those unemployed for 26
weeks or longer hit another record, 46% of the jobless.

Also positive was the 31,000 increase in temporary help workers
outside the Census, about average for the last three months.

The accompanying survey of households turned in a May result
remarkably close to the survey of payroll establishments, showing a
407,000 gain after adjustments to make the two surveys comparable.

Expectations in a Market News International survey centered on a
gain of 540,000 payroll slots in May and a unemployment rate stuck at
9.8%.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

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