The United States created 559,000 jobs in May and unemployment fell to 5.8%

The US economy created 559,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate fell to 5.8%, reported this Friday the Ministry of Labor, in a context where the massive vaccination against the coronavirus allowed the reopening and the hiring in the companies.

Although last month’s job creation was weaker than expected, the monthly report shows a resumption of massive layoffs caused by the pandemic, with a 431,000 drop in the number of persistently unemployed to 3.8 million, a figure that is still high. Against February 2020, there is 7.6 million fewer jobs, according to the report.

It’s the the first time the US unemployment rate has fallen 6% since the start of the pandemic, when it went from 3.5% in February 2020 to 14.8% in April of the same year.

The agency also revised April’s job creation from 266,000 initially posted to 278,000.

The employment agency detected in May “Significant gains” in employment in the leisure and hospitality sectors, private education, health and social assistance, according to monthly report data.

The report indicates that the average hourly wage increased in May 15 cents to $ 30.33.

The data was released on Friday a day after it was released that the The weekly number of claims for unemployment benefits in the United States fell last week to 406,000, against 444,000 the previous week.

This is the lowest number in more than a year when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the job market and took weekly applications to an unprecedented 6.8 million end of March 2020.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

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