Job Growth Up 157,000 in May

Washington, DC, June 1, 2007--Job creation climbed by an unexpectedly brisk 157,000 in May on a surge of hiring in service businesses while hiring in the factory sector continued to decline, Labor Department data showed on Friday. 

The total of new jobs in May handily outstripped Wall Street economists' forecasts for 130,000 jobs and fit with other recent evidence that the pace of economic activity was bouncing back from a soft patch in the first three months of the year. It may also raise fears about the possibility that tight labor markets will fan wage and price pressures.

The monthly unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.5 percent in May.

The department revised April's job-creation figures to show that 80,000 jobs were created instead of the 88,000 it reported a month ago.

All the new May jobs came in service-producing industries, which produced 176,000 more jobs while 19,000 were lost from the goods-producing sector. Among service businesses, there was healthy job growth in financial activities, business services, education, the hospitality industry and in government.

But another 19,000 jobs were shed by manufacturing businesses and there was no job growth at all in construction industries.

Average hours of work rose slightly to 33.9 from 33.8 in April, though overtime hours fell slightly to 4.1 in May from 4.2 in April.