by Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) – U.S. companies continued to hire in May as they took advantage of the easing of health constraints and advances in COVID-19 vaccination, a development that supports the scenario of the continuation of the reprise.
The United States economy has created 559,000 non-farm jobs, said the Labor Department, which revised April’s figure slightly to 278,000 from the 266,000 initially announced.
Economists polled by Reuters on average expected a figure of 650,000 jobs created in May. Their estimates ranged from 400,000 to one million.
The unemployment rate, calculated on the basis of a separate survey, fell to 5.8% in May from 6.1% the previous month while the consensus gave it at 5.9%.
Many observers consider this indicator to be underestimated, with many Americans presenting themselves as “employed but absent from work” rather than job seekers.
The report from the Department of Labor also shows that the average hourly wage rose 0.5% in May while the market expected an increase of 0.2% after + 0.7% in April. Over one year, it thus shows an increase of 2.0%.
A strong and prolonged increase in wages, favored by the recruitment difficulties encountered by several sectors, such as catering, could give credence to the scenario – feared by the financial markets – of a lasting acceleration in inflation likely to oblige the Federal Reserve to tighten its monetary policy more quickly than expected.
The majority of economists, however, do not expect the Fed to start cutting back its massive bond purchases in the market before the end of the year, a strategy that keeps interest rates very low and favors rising stock prices.
Wall Street was indicated higher after the publication of the employment figures while in the bond market, the yield on ten-year Treasury bills rose to 1.6335% against 1.625% just before the publication of the statistics.
At the same time, the dollar lost ground against the euro, which rose to 1.2140 against 1.2114.
(French version Marc Angrand)
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