Recovery's next phase | Friday, June 03, 2022
| |  Alerts | | | | | | | | Presented By West Monroe | | | | Axios AM Thought Bubble | | By Mike Allen · Jun 03, 2022 | | Good morning. Here are Axios chief economic correspondent Neil Irwin and economics reporter Courtenay Brown with what you need to know about today's jobs numbers. - Smart Brevity™ count: 299 words ... a 1-minute read.
| | | | | | 1 big thing: Boom loses heat |  The ultra high-pressure U.S. job market may finally be starting to release a little steam. - That's the key takeaway from new job numbers that show an extremely healthy labor market that nonetheless seems to be moving toward a less overheated state.
Driving the news: Employers added 390,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said — the lowest job growth in a year. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6%, holding close to the lowest levels seen in the past half century. - Other details suggested a job market starting to come into balance. The number of adults in the labor force — either working or looking for work — rose by 330,000.
- Wage growth, while still strong at 0.3% for the month, receded from its recent highs. Over the last year, average hourly earnings are up 5.2%, compared to 5.5% in April.
State of play: Policymakers at the Federal Reserve and in the Biden administration want to see a labor market that is still healthy but cools from its red-hot levels seen earlier in the year, which tend to fuel higher inflation. - "If average monthly job creation shifts in the next year from current levels of 500,000 to something closer to 150,000, it will be a sign that we are successfully moving into the next phase of recovery," President Biden wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week.
- "This kind of job growth is consistent with a low unemployment rate and a healthy economy."
- In that sense, the May numbers are what they hope to see — a gradual deceleration in the labor market, but not a sudden stop.
The bottom line: Policymakers are attempting a difficult, and potentially impossible, task in trying to cool off inflation pressures without a recession. But things went according to plan in May. |     | | | | | | A message from West Monroe | | Poll: Execs face significant headwinds in Q2 | | |  | | | | West Monroe's Quarterly Executive Poll of 250 C-suite leaders shows: - 93% say it's harder to hire frontline workers compared to Q2 last year.
- Inflation's biggest impact is on wages and recruiting talent.
- 55% are bearish, 45% are bullish.
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