{"id":77077,"date":"2025-07-20T04:09:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T04:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/77077\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T04:09:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T04:09:21","slug":"hiring-in-the-us-slows-though-a-139000-jobs-added-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/77077\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiring in the US slows, though a 139,000 jobs added in May"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 U.S. employers slowed hiring last month, but still added a solid 139,000 jobs amid uncertainty over President Donald Trump\u2019s trade wars<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Hiring fell from a revised 147,000 in April, the Department of Labor said Friday. The job gains last month were above the 130,000 that economists had forecast.<\/p>\n

Healthcare companies added 62,000 jobs and bars and restaurants 30,000. The federal government shed 22,000 jobs, however, the most since November 2020, as Trump\u2019s job cuts and hiring freeze had an impact. And factories lost 8,000 jobs last month.<\/p>\n

Average hourly wages rose 0.4% from April and 3.9% from a year earlier \u2013 a bit higher than forecast. <\/p>\n

There were a few signs of potential weakening. Labor Department revisions shaved 95,000 jobs from March and April payrolls. The number of people in the U.S. labor force \u2013 those working or looking for work \u2013 fell by 625,000 last month, the biggest drop since December 2023. And the percentage of those who had jobs fell last month to 59.7%, the lowest since January 2022. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s aggressive and unpredictable<\/a> policies \u2013 especially his sweeping taxes on imports<\/a> \u2013 have muddied the outlook for the economy and the job market and raised fears that the American economy could be headed toward recession. But so far the damage hasn\u2019t shown up clearly in government economic data<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe job market is still standing tall even as some of these headwinds start to blow,\u201d said Daniel Zhao, lead economist at the jobs website Glassdoor. \u201cBut ultimately we\u2019re all still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It\u2019s still much too early for tariff impacts to be a significant drag on the economy.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The U.S. economy and job market have proven surprisingly resilient in recent years. When the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve raised their benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023, the higher borrowing costs were widely expected to tip the United States into a recession. They didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Still, the job market has clearly decelerated. So far this year, American employers have added an average of less than 124,000 a month. That is down 26% from last year, down almost 43% from 2023, and down a whopping 67% compared with 2022.<\/p>\n

The modest job gains and steady unemployment rate are likely to keep the Fed on the sidelines for at least the next few months, economists said. The central bank Fed has kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged this year, after cutting it three times last year.<\/p>\n

Fed chair Jerome Powell and most other Fed policymakers have voiced concern that Trump\u2019s tariffs could push up inflation later this year, which they would seek to counter by raising rates. The Fed is only likely to accelerate interest rate cuts if the job market sharply deteriorates. But so far hiring is holding up.<\/p>\n

Investors still expect just two cuts by the Fed this year, starting in September. Jim Lebenthal, chief equity strategist at Cerity Partners, said the central bank will likely stay on hold as it waits to see whether the sweeping tariffs that Trump imposed April 2, then delayed until July 9, return in some form. Those duties are also being challenged in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to see the effects of the tariffs before they make any moves,\u201d Lebenthal said.<\/p>\n

Recent economic reports have sent mixed signals.<\/p>\n

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly<\/a> to 7.4 million in April \u2014 seemingly a good sign. But the same report showed that layoffs ticked up and the number of Americans quitting their jobs fell, a sign they were less confident they could find something better elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Surveys by the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, found that both American manufacturing and services businesses were contracting last month.<\/p>\n

And the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose<\/a> last week to the highest level in eight months, though jobless claims remain low by historical standards.<\/p>\n

The job market has clearly decelerated. So far this year, American employers have added an average of less than 124,000 a month. That is down 26% from last year, down almost 43% from 2023, and a down whopping 67% compared with 2022.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s tariffs \u2014 and the erratic way he rolls them out, suspends them and conjures up new ones \u2014 have already buffeted the economy. <\/p>\n

\u201cEmployers have been hoarding labor in the face of massive corrosive uncertainty,\u201d said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. \u201cWe believe firms have been reluctant to lay off workers until they saw the extent of the Trump tariffs. Now that the tariffs are out in the open, we believe most firms see the writing on the wall and will start workforce reductions right now.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Steel Horse Leather is a Brooklyn company that makes handmade leather bags and imports some of its material and production from China. <\/p>\n

Owner Dave Heaton says rapidly evolving tariff rules have made it difficult to manage the business day to day \u2013 let alone build on his staff of four. \u201cWith the current volatility, hiring really isn\u2019t something at the top of our list, unfortunately,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Heaton\u2019s company has also begun to supplement sea freight with air shipments to secure products in time for the fall and holiday seasons. He\u2019s raised prices 10% to 15% on some products to cover higher shipping fees and some of the tariffs, the first price hikes in in three years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe real challenge is the uncertainty,\u201d Heaton said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about the price hikes \u2014 it\u2019s that we can\u2019t plan ahead like we used to.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber in Washington and AP Retail Writer Anne D\u2019Innocenzio in New York contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 U.S. employers slowed hiring last month, but still added a solid 139,000 jobs amid uncertainty…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":77078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3881,1121,64,53270,26858,53271,69,2239,79,455,57,13790,53272,420,63,606,16618,29156,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-77077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-carl-weinberg","12":"tag-daniel-zhao","13":"tag-dave-heaton","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-economic-indicators","16":"tag-economy","17":"tag-federal-reserve-system","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-international-trade","20":"tag-jim-lebenthal","21":"tag-jobs","22":"tag-jobs-and-careers","23":"tag-labor","24":"tag-tariffs-and-global-trade","25":"tag-u-s-department-of-labor","26":"tag-u-s-news","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114883603093269668","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}