Economy
June 4, 2018
Net Job Creation through May 2018
Written by Peter Wright
Net job creation in May hit 223,000 seasonally adjusted. Year over year, 2,363,000 jobs have been created, an increase of 1.6 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data.
Rising employment and wages are the basis of GDP growth because personal consumption accounts for almost 70 percent of GDP. Steel consumption is related to GDP; therefore, we need to be aware of changes to the employment picture. Net job creation in May, as reported by the BLS on Friday, was up by 64,000 from April’s downwardly revised count. In this context, net means the difference between gains and losses, which are both much larger numbers than we are used to considering. Over a seven-year period, gains averaged 7,211,000 per quarter as losses averaged 6,597,000 on the same basis.
