US job growth slows; unemployment rate drops to 4.3 percent

The May report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has something for everyone: Good indicators, bad indicators, and a near-historic low in overall unemployment.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 138,000 last month as the manufacturing, government and retail sectors lost jobs. That was a lot less than 180,000 expected and April's 174,000, a number that was revised down from 211,000 originally reported.

"Job growth in May was soft and there were downward revisions to job growth in March and April as well", said PNC economists Gus Faucher and Stuart Hoffman.

In the past two years, the U-3 rate has returned to the prerecession levels that economists consider full employment.

"If this remains the case, job growth will stay at this slower pace throughout 2017", they said.

LONDON, June 2 The dollar retreated slightly after disappointing U.S.jobs growth data on Friday though world stocks clung on to record highs, having gained 11 percent so far this year.

America's job market may be losing steam. Retailers and manufacturers shed jobs and leisure and hospitality, a category that includes restaurants, increase at a slower rate. Hospital employment grew by 7,400 jobs.

Most analysts still expect the Fed to increase the benchmark lending rate later this month, but expectations for another increase in September could be in doubt. That rate has fallen even more sharply than the unemployment rate over the past year. Payroll processor ADP reported that in a private survey of companies, it found that a hefty 253,000 jobs were added in May, mostly among companies with fewer than 500 workers. Goldman Sachs says the trend will continue to reduce monthly job gains by about 10,000. The White House is preparing for a fight over raising the federal debt limit and approving government funding that, if not resolved, could rock the U.S. economy and global stock markets and cause the Fed to put its plans on hold. A 0.2 per cent raise in the average hourly earnings was estimated for the month of May compared to 0.3 per cent in April. Job gains have averaged 121,000 over the last three months, a deceleration from an average of 181,000 over the last 12 months. A broad measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have given up searching and those working part-time because they can not find full-time employment, fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 8.4 percent, the lowest since November 2007.

The jobs report was the last major economic indicator to be released before Federal Reserve monetary policymakers gather in Washington on June 13 to decide whether to raise their key short-term interest rate.

"The economy is starting to come back, and very, very rapidly", President Donald Trump said on Thursday, as he announced that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord because it costs too much money and would kill millions of American jobs.