More Bad News

This morning, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released national unemployment and unemployment data for the month of May. The data were deeply troubling. Some highlights follow:

1) Over the month, non-farm payroll employment fell by 49,000 jobs. So far in 2008, the American economy, on net, has lost 324,000 more jobs than it has created.

2) Employment losses in May were the most pronounced in the construction, manufacturing, retail trade and temporary help industries.

3)The national unemployment rate rose by 0.5 percentage points and now totals 5.5 percent. This represents the highest monthly unemployment rate since October 2004. Overall, some 8.5 million Americans were jobless in May.

4) Unemployment rates rose sharply for many demographic groups, especially adult men, adult women, teens, whites and African Americans. Young workers (ages 16 to 24) experienced a disproportionately large increase in unemployment.

5) Both the number of newly unemployed (jobless less than five weeks) and long-term unemployed (jobless for 27 or more weeks)  individuals rose in May.

State-level data for May will be released later in the month.