{"id":718822,"date":"2026-06-06T10:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T10:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/718822\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T10:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T10:48:16","slug":"u-s-labour-market-shows-resilience-despite-iran-war-adding-172000-jobs-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/718822\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. labour market shows resilience despite Iran war, adding 172,000 jobs in May"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A construction worker prepares a recently poured concrete foundation, Friday, in Boston in 2023.Michael Dwyer\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

The American job market continues to show surprising strength, shrugging off the high costs of the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Employers added 172,000 jobs in May \u2013 roughly double what forecasters had expected \u2013 and the unemployment rate remained at a low 4.3 per cent.<\/p>\n

The Labor Department reported Friday that job growth was down slightly last month from a revised 179,000 in April. The unemployment rate stayed at a low 4.3 per cent.<\/p>\n

Hiring has bounced back this year from a miserable 2025, showing resilience in the face of economic uncertainty and painfully high energy prices caused by the Iran war.<\/p>\n

The job gains last month were broad-based. Local governments added 55,000 workers, restaurants and bars 48,000, health care companies 35,000.<\/p>\n

In another sign of job market strength, Labor Department revisions added a combined 93,000 jobs in March and April. Job growth averaged 188,000 a month from March through May, marking the best three months of hiring since early 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hiring recession is over. American firms are hiring again,\u201d said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. \u201cThe job rebound is happening in almost every industry … This is encouraging news for job seekers and for the U.S. economy. The labour market has stabilized and is showing early signs of a genuine rebound.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Despite the pickup in hiring, wage gains were modest, which could reassure the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve. Average hourly wages rose 0.3 per cent from April and 3.4 per cent from May, 2025, consistent with the Fed\u2019s 2-per-cent inflation target.<\/p>\n

Financial markets retreated after the report came in, likely reflecting expectations that the Fed won\u2019t see a need to cut interest rates this year because hiring is so healthy.<\/p>\n

Workers, jobseekers and employers have been stuck in an awkward \u201cno-hire, no-fire\u2019\u2019 labour market. \u201cThose who have jobs are clinging to them, while those without are left wanting,\u201d Diane Swonk, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm KPMG, wrote in a commentary ahead of the jobs report. \u201cThe result is a sense of being frozen or left in a sort of labour market purgatory.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Many young people are finding it tough to break into a stagnant job market. And workers who have been laid off struggle to get back to work. Nearly 28% of the unemployed in April had been jobless for more than six months, biggest share since December, 2021.<\/p>\n

Seeing their prospects diminished, Americans are reluctant to leave their jobs and seek something better elsewhere. In April, the number of people who quit dropped to the lowest level since the frightening days of August, 2020, when the COVID-19 was running rampant.<\/p>\n

Last year, employers added 9,700 jobs a month, fewest outside a recession since 2002.<\/p>\n

This year, hiring has rebounded, averaging 114,000 new jobs a month from January through May. Big tax refunds \u2013 the product of President Donald Trump\u2019s 2025 tax cuts \u2013 have given the economy a lift, offsetting the impact of higher energy prices since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. But the refunds have mostly been pocketed, and gasoline prices remain above US$4 per gallon.<\/p>\n

Healthcare companies have been driving much of hiring over the past year.<\/p>\n

Martha Gimbel and Ryan Nunn of Yale University\u2019s Budget Lab note that strong healthcare hiring isn\u2019t surprising as Americans age and need more prescriptions and trips to the doctor. In fact, the industry\u2019s job growth is in line with Labor Department predictions from a decade ago. \u201cThe question is not why healthcare has kept hiring\u2013it is why other industries have not,\u2019\u2019 they wrote in a report published Tuesday, suggesting that one explanation might be an immigration crackdown that has reduced the supply of foreign-born workers.<\/p>\n

At least the United States doesn\u2019t need as many new jobs as it used to. The drop in immigrants and rising Baby Boomer retirements mean that fewer people are competing for work. As a result, the so-called break-even point \u2013 the number of new jobs required to keep the unemployment rate stable \u2013 has likely dropped to near zero, from the 155,000 new jobs per month that was typical two or three years ago, according to a Federal Reserve report.<\/p>\n

Some analysts fear that artificial intelligence will wipe out entry-level jobs. But economists Gregory Daco and Lydia Boussour of the tax and consulting firm EY-Parthenon wrote in a commentary Tuesday that AI \u201cadoption is proving more gradual and costly than many anticipated. Firms are increasingly using AI to enhance productivity and control labour costs.\u2019\u2019 But AI, they wrote, has reduced hiring rather than \u201ctriggering broad-based layoffs.\u2033<\/p>\n

And a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York identified a different culprit for young people\u2019s struggle to land jobs after college: the rise of remote work. Businesses, it seems, are reluctant to hire new grads for work-at-home jobs because it is harder to train and mentor them when they aren\u2019t coming into the office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A construction worker prepares a recently poured concrete foundation, Friday, in Boston in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-718822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}