Job growth held steady in May, but new signs of economic trouble emerge
Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 125,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in May. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals easily exceeded expectations. NBC News reported:
The United States added 139,000 jobs in May, more than expected but pointing to a labor market that continues to slow. The employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics exceeded forecasts for about 120,000 payroll gains but marked a decline from the revised 147,000 jobs added in April. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, remaining near historic lows.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump published a one-sentence statement to his social media platform, in which the president boasted, 'Because of Tariffs, our Economy is BOOMING!'
The data suggests otherwise. There's nothing especially wrong with the preliminary topline totals from May — 139,000 jobs is a mediocre number but hardly a disaster — though there are other signs of trouble. For example, the revised jobs totals from March and April were sharply lower, pointing to a job market that appears to be cooling.
Indeed, consider the broader context: Over the first five months of 2025, the latest data suggest the economy has added 619,000 jobs. Over the first five months of 2024 — when Trump said the economy was terrible — the total was nearly 898,000 jobs. Over the first five months of 2023, the U.S. economy added nearly 1.3 million jobs.
If we exclude 2020, when the pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy, the first five months of this year are the worst since the Great Recession. A variety of adjectives come to mind, but 'BOOMING' isn't one of them.
NBC News' report added, 'Even as the economy continued to add jobs at a relatively steady clip last month, the report showed other signs of a weakening labor market. The ratio of employed workers to the total population fell to 59.7%, the lowest rate since the pandemic. And an alternative measure of unemployment that includes 'discouraged' workers, or those who have stopped looking for work, returned to a post-pandemic high of 4.5%.'
In recent weeks, there's been a lot of discussion in economic and finance circles about when and whether the White House tariffs and trade policies would start to affect the domestic job market. Real trouble hasn't yet arrived — it's tough to complain too much about a 4.2% unemployment rate — but concerned chatter is going to be noticeably louder in response to this new data.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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She shares a European political party with Poland's Law and Justice, which is hawkish on Russia and will be contesting the general election in 2027 if Mr Tusk's vote of confidence passes next week. Spain's conservatives won the popular vote – 33.1 per cent – in the last general election, but fell short of a majority. Their potential coalition allies, Vox, the far-Right and Trump allied nationalists, underperformed, obtaining just 12.4 per cent of the vote. That opened the door for socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez to assemble an extremely broad coalition of the centre-Left, communists and Catalan and Basque separatists. Polarised Spain's culture wars have only got worse in the years since the 2023 election and the start of the divisive Mr Sanchez's second term. The pardoning of Catalan separatists and political discussions with former terrorists, as well as corruption allegations about his wife and allies, could cost him in 2027. Emmanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections, effectively daring the French to hand over power to the hard-Right, after Marine Le Pen's National Rally defeated him in the European Parliament elections last summer. National Rally did not get a majority, after a group of different parties united to keep out the hard-Right. But Mr Macron's party lost its majority in the National Assembly and has been a lame duck domestically ever since. Head of the largest single party in France, Ms Le Pen is well positioned for presidential elections in 2027, in which Mr Macron cannot stand. But Ms Le Pen was banned from running for the presidency in March after being found guilty of embezzlement. It drew immediate comparisons to the 'lawfare' waged on Mr Trump, who offered his support. She is appealing, but her protege Jordan Bardella will run in her stead if necessary. Polls are showing that either could win against Gabriel Attal, a contender to succeed Mr Macron as candidate – if they were to run. Ms Le Pen would beat him 53 per cent to 47 per cent, Bardella by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. The question is whether the 'front republican' will once again emerge in the second round of the presidential elections to keep the National Rally from power. Or, as it did this week in Poland, fall just short. The election of a Eurosceptic leader to the presidency of France, the EU's most influential member state alongside Germany, would be a political earthquake that would shake Brussels to its core. Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said the populist parties in Europe were comparing notes as they plotted their routes to power. He said: 'They use the success and failure of other parties to learn from and use in campaigns. You see a lot of copying of strategies, such as victim playing or attacking so-called elites.' In general, traditional parties had an advantage in their experience and ability to govern, he added. Mr Wilders' decision to pull the plug on his coalition was an example that proved populists were 'good at saying things, not doing them.' The parties were also 'super-unstable' and given to infighting. For Prof Krouwel, the rise of the populist Right across Europe has its roots in economic anxiety as well as fears over immigration. 'There was always an expectation that your children will do better than you. You can't say that now,' he said, adding that Dutch children were staying home far longer because they can't afford to move out. 'We are all becoming southern Europe and that is an explanation for the populist surge,' he said. Maria Skora, visiting researcher at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels, said there were certain broad trends common to many EU countries where the hard Right was on the rise. There have been 15 years of difficulties, including the eurozone and migrant crises. The pandemic was followed by the war in Ukraine and the resulting cost of living crisis. That all contributed to the sense that traditional parties were not delivering. Meanwhile, parties like the AfD were extremely effective at using social media and digital campaigning. 'It's a digital revolution, as big a revolution as you know, radio back in the day,' Ms Skora said. 'I think this feeds into this tribalism and polarisation, which we see in more countries.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
