May Employment Report: 339 thousand Jobs, 3.7% Unemployment Rate

From the BLS:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 339,000 in May, and the unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage point to 3.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, government, health care, construction, transportation and warehousing, and social assistance.
...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised up by 52,000, from +165,000 to +217,000, and the change for April was revised up by 41,000, from +253,000 to +294,000. With these revisions, employment in March and April combined is 93,000 higher than previously reported.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows the jobs added per month since January 2021.

Total payrolls increased by 339 thousand in May.  Private payrolls increased by 283 thousand, and public payrolls increased 56 thousand.

Payrolls for March and April were revised up 93 thousand, combined.

The second graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.

In May, the year-over-year change was 4.06 million jobs.  Employment was up significantly year-over-year.

The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.

The Labor Force Participation Rate was unchanged at 62.6% in May, from 62.6% in April. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.

The Employment-Population ratio declined to 60.3% from 60.4% (blue line).

I'll post the 25 to 54 age group employment-population ratio graph later.

The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate increased in May to 3.7% from 3.4% in April.

This was well above consensus expectations; and March and April payrolls were revised up by 93,000 combined.  

I'll have more later ...