Thread by @eliselgould

Today's jobs report is a promising sign that the recovery is on track. The labor market added 559,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate fell to 5.8%.

1/n
bls.gov/news.release/p…

+559k jobs in May is slightly better than the average growth of the prior 3 months. If this pace continues over the next year, we will likely get down to 4% unemployment by mid-2022 and will be fully recovered before the end of 2022, fully absorbing losses plus population growth.

Employment in leisure and hospitality continues to record strong improvements, gaining 292k in May on top of 328k in April, and 227k in March.

3/n

The unemployment rate ticked down in May from 6.1% to 5.8%, mostly for the "right" reasons. The employment to population ratio ticked up one-tenth and the labor force participation rate ticked down one-tenth. On net, more unemployed workers got jobs and some left the labor force.

It was a promising sign in April that more people flooded back into the labor force seeking work. The mild losses in labor force participation in May may just be a blip in a volatile series. I fully expect the longer term trend to keep improving.
5/n

The gains in leisure and hospitality are welcome news, but that sector remains 2.5 million below pre-pandemic levels. I'm optimistic that we will continue to see solid growth in coming months as vaccine distribution continues and businesses find it safe to reopen.
6/n

The labor market is down 7.6 million jobs since February 2020, but the total jobs shortfall should take into account pre-pandemic labor market trends or at least growth in the working age population. When those are included, the jobs shortfall is in the range of 8.6-10.7 million.

The overall improvement in the unemployment rate in May was experienced by all race/ethnic groups, but Black unemployment remains stubbornly high at 9.1%, while white and Asian unemployment are already significantly below the pre-pandemic Black unemployment rate.
8/n

The latest jobs report shows promising improvements in long-term unemployment: there were 421,000 fewer workers unemployed 27 weeks and over in May than in April. And, we estimate there were 41,000 fewer workers unemployed 52 weeks or more.
9/n

The latest data tell us that 16.6% of workers teleworked in May because of the coronavirus pandemic, down from 18.3% in April.

@joriskywalker and I look at teleworking over the year and find stark disparities in who can and who cannot work from home.
epi.org/blog/only-one-…
10/

Yesterday, @joshbivens_DC and I put recent growth in perspective (epi.org/blog/what-to-w…).

With today's data, restoring pre-COVID labor market health by the end of 2022 would require creating 515,000 jobs each month between June 2021 and December 2022.

May's 559k is on track.

Valuable perspective on who is hurting in today's economy provided by @its_Melat @EconomicPolicy:

https://twitter.com/its_Melat/status/1400834257409515522