Array
America’s surprisingly resilient job market delivered yet another month of higher-than-expected hiring in May — adding 339,000 jobs last month.
The mammoth number raises the prospect that the Federal Reserve will continue hiking interest rates in hopes of battling stubbornly high inflation.
The latest figures released by the Labor Department also indicate that unemployment rose 3.7% from 3.4%.
Before the federal government revealed the latest figures, analysts estimated that hiring slowed to a still-healthy pace of 190,000 added jobs last month, according to a survey by the data provider FactSet.
That would have marked a decline from the robust 253,000 jobs that were gained in April and would fall below the average for the previous three months of about 220,000.
The unemployment rate was projected to rise slightly to 3.5% from a five-decade low of 3.4%.
Companies have steadily slowed hiring since January, when the three-month average pace of gains was an unusually strong 330,000.
Federal Reserve officials would welcome a more modest rate of job growth.
The central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate 10 times in 14 months in an aggressive drive to conquer high inflation.
