The US Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates to the 5.00 to 5.25 percent range since early 2022 in a bid to stem high inflation and cool the overheated labor market.
(Photo: imago images/Westend61)
Washington Far more jobs than expected were created on the US labor market in May. 339,000 new jobs outside of agriculture were added, as the government in Washington announced on Friday. Economists surveyed by the Reuters news agency had only expected 190,000 new jobs.
In addition, the value for job creation in April was revised – to 294,000 from the originally reported 253,000 jobs. However, the separately calculated unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent in May from 3.4 percent in April. Experts had only expected a slight increase to 3.5 percent.
The US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates from near zero to the 5.00 to 5.25 percent range since early 2022 in a bid to stem high inflation and cool the overheated labor market. Recently, despite the series of interest rates dampening the economy, the number of vacancies, a measure of the demand for workers, has surprisingly increased.
Recently, however, there have been increasing signals from the management level of the US Federal Reserve that point to an interest rate pause in the current month. According to Fed Director Philip Jefferson, who has been nominated to be Vice Chairman, such a pause would allow further economic data to be viewed. Later, the central bank could then decide what additional tightening of monetary policy was still necessary.
More: Optimism in the debt dispute and speculation on an interest rate pause are driving US stock markets