The May Employment Report (to Be Updated When Released)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the Employment Situation report for May at 8:30 this morning.

Predictions and Precursors:

• The ADP National Employment Report came in Wednesday with an estimate of 97,000 nonfarm private jobs created.
• Talk about hedging, despite the headline (”May payrolls likely to disappoint”), here’s FX Street: “Looking to the May report, the market expects a gain of 135,000, with the range of estimates between 45,000 and 224,000 (180,000 if the outlier is taken out). We put the risks for a number below 100 000.”
• This report says that “economists are forecasting will show the US economy created 140,000 new jobs last month.”

Actuals (BLS Link):

• Unemployment — 4.5%, unchanged
• Jobs added in May — 157,000
• Revisions to previous months — March, -2,000 (177,000 to 175,000); April, -8,000 (from 88,000 to 80,000)
• Net Additions, including previous month revisions — 147,000 (157-8-2)

Quick Take: — Pretty decent, and pretty much in line with what was expected. Revisions to previous months, which have been upward, sometimes significantly, in BLS reports for most of the last two years, have been down by single-digit amount for two months in a row. Maybe the initial reports are getting better.

Press reax: Anything I might say about press coverage will come tomorrow, though I find the CNN e-mail about the announcement startling:

The U.S. added 157,000 jobs in May, beating estimates. Weak April number revised down to 80,000. Key inflation gauge rises.

Geez, April’s downward revision was only 8,000. The e-mail alerts have NEVER talked about prior month revisions when they’ve been upward and several times larger.