\n Economists are expecting that Friday\u2019s jobs report will show that the US economy added 105,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%.\n <\/p>\n
\n If Friday\u2019s monthly total comes in as expected \u2013 and the prior months\u2019 figures aren\u2019t revised starkly lower \u2013 it would mark three consecutive months of 100,000-plus jobs added.\n <\/p>\n
\n That kind of hat trick hasn\u2019t been accomplished since the first three months of 2024.\n <\/p>\n
\n While one month does not make a trend, three sure seem like a start: Job gains upward of 100,000 could indicate that the labor market is stabilizing<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n However, it\u2019s also not that simple: The labor market is in the throes of a complex evolution, with many different moving parts.\n <\/p>\n \n At play are structural changes<\/a>, a generational technology movement<\/a>, and a slew of external variables<\/a>, to name a few.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s just in this place where we\u2019re really resetting a new normal, what normal is going to look like, and what a \u2018good jobs report\u2019 will look like moving forward, which is different than it was pre-pandemic and from historical trends,\u201d said Nicole Bachaud, a labor economist at employment site ZipRecruiter.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s also not just reflected in slower job gains, said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe jobs are more likely to be part-time, they\u2019re more likely to be in healthcare, they are more likely to be low-paying,\u201d Richardson said.\n <\/p>\n \n Here are a few other dynamics to keep in mind and keep an eye out for in Friday\u2019s report:\n <\/p>\n \n Healthcare<\/a> and social assistance \u2013 a sector buoyed by an aging population \u2013 has gone from driving job gains to propping up the entire labor market.\n <\/p>\n \n The sector, one of the nation\u2019s largest, accounts for 15% of overall employment.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMy concern for the last two years is how one-note the labor market was,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cBasically, all the job gains came from healthcare. Nothing in manufacturing. Construction ebbs and flows with cyclical interest rates. And no sense of broad-based hiring.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n That appears to be changing, Richardson said.\n <\/p>\n \n ADP\u2019s recent monthly employment reports, including one for May released Wednesday, showed that job gains are picking up across a wider array of industries in the private sector.\n <\/p>\n \n When Friday\u2019s report is released, one metric to watch will be the Diffusion Index<\/a>, which provides a measurement of job growth across major industries. A number greater than 50 indicates that more industries are adding jobs than shedding them.\n <\/p>\n \n Wage gains have been slowing from their post-pandemic highs \u2014 but for the past three years, they were still outpacing inflation.\n <\/p>\n \n That changed in April, when the oil supply crunch from the US-Israeli war with Iran (and ensuing price shock) sent inflation to 3.8%<\/a>. Average hourly earnings that month grew at a rate of 3.6%.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAn uptick in wage growth would be good news for workers struggling with higher prices, but it would also push the [Federal Reserve] in the direction of rate hikes,\u201d Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote in a note Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n What is the impact of high gas prices, tech layoffs and Spirit\u2019s bankruptcy?<\/p>\n \n Businesses appear to be treating the spike in fuel prices as a temporary surge versus a sustained change, ZipRecruiter\u2019s Bachaud said.\n <\/p>\n \n As such, there\u2019s not expected to be a broad or discernible pullback in hiring or a rise in layoffs, she said, adding that industries to watch will include transportation, retail and construction.\n <\/p>\n \n Employment in the transportation sector is expected to take a hit in May as a result of Spirit Airlines shutting down its operations<\/a> on May 2, putting 17,000 employees and contractors out of a job.\n <\/p>\n \n Layoff announcements picked up in May, according to a new report released Thursday morning by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The outplacement and coaching firm tracked 97,006 job cuts announced at US-based firms, up 16% from April and 3% from May of last year.\n <\/p>\n \n The lion\u2019s share of the cuts was at technology firms, and artificial intelligence once again led the reasons for the planned reductions.\n <\/p>\n \n While mass layoffs, especially those attributed to AI, make the headlines, economists aren\u2019t sounding the alarm bells. They note that claims for unemployment benefits haven\u2019t accelerated dramatically and remain near historic lows.\n <\/p>\n \n Last week, there were an estimated 225,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance, an increase of 13,000 from the week before. Weekly claims data can be volatile, particularly around holiday weeks, so economists also track the four-week moving average, which ticked up to 214,750 claims. (For perspective, that average was 228,500 in the March 2020 week before the initial Covid-19 shutdown.)\n <\/p>\n \n AI adoption in the workplace remains \u201cvery early days,\u201d Bachaud said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve yet to see any widespread job displacement or really widespread growth,\u201d she told CNN.\n <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-06-03t172806z-1122565436-rc27fka73g6y-rtrmadp-3-usa-economy.JPG\")
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