U.S. unemployment rate remains above pre-pandemic levels
Xinhua News Agency, Washington, June 3 (Reporter Xu Yuan) The data released by the US Department of Labor on the 3rd showed that the US unemployment rate remained at 3.6% for the third consecutive month in May this year, still higher than the level before the new crown epidemic.
The data shows that compared with February 2020 before the outbreak of the epidemic in the United States, the unemployment rate in the United States was 0.1 percentage points higher, and the number of unemployed people was 300,000 more.
At the same time, there were 235,000 more long-term unemployed people who were unemployed for more than 27 weeks than before the pandemic.
Data showed that the US non-farm sector added 390,000 jobs in May, a decrease from April.
By industry, employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 84,000 month-on-month in May, employment in professional and business services increased by 75,000, employment in manufacturing increased by 18,000, and employment in retail trade decreased by 61,000.
The data also showed that the U.S. labor force participation rate edged up 0.1 percentage points from the previous month to 62.3% in May.
Analysts believe that the number of non-farm payrolls added in May hit the lowest level since April 2021, which may signal a further slowdown in U.S. economic growth in the coming months.