Jobs data to show whether worker shortages still slow hiring

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With U.S. businesses scrambling to fill millions of jobs as the economy reopens much faster than many had expected, Friday's jobs report for May will help show whether their efforts are succeeding.

The fading of the pandemic has released substantial pent-up demand among consumers to eat out, travel, shop, สูตรสล็อตฟรี attend public events and visit with friends and relatives. But it has also produced a disconnect between companies and the unemployed. Businesses are rushing to add workers immediately. Yet many of the unemployed are either seeking better jobs than they had before the pandemic, still lack affordable child care, worry about contracting COVID-19 or have decided to retire early.

That disconnect resulted in a sharp slowdown in hiring in April, when employers added far fewer jobs than economists had forecast and many fewer than had been hired in March.

Analysts have predicted an improvement for May, with 650,000 jobs added, compared with April's surprisingly tepid gain of 266,000. The unemployment rate is projected to fall from 6.1% to 5.9%, according to data provider FactSet. If the forecasts for May are accurate, that would still be a slower hiring pace than the 1 million jobs a month that many economists had envisioned in early spring. The economy still has 8.2 million fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic struck.

Either way, the economy is recovering at a healthy pace, and companies are still seeking workers: Job postings in late May were nearly 26% above pre-pandemic levels, according to the employment website Indeed. Government data shows that posted jobs have reached their highest level on record dating back to 2000.

And consumers are opening their wallets. In April, they increased their spending after a huge gain in March that had been fueled by the distribution of $1,400 stimulus checks. With more Americans feeling comfortable about staying in hotels and visiting entertainment venues, spending on services jumped.

Service industries, including banking, retail, and shipping, expanded at the fastest pace on record in May. The evidence suggests that consumers have embarked on a long-anticipated shift away from the large goods purchases that many of them had made while hunkered down at home to spending on services, from haircuts to sporting events to vacation trips.