May 1996 Employment Situation

Historical release narrative reproduced from the official public-domain source. Statistical tables, standard technical appendices, administrative material and attendance rosters are omitted; formatting is adapted for reading. Figures retain the release's historical context and may have been revised. Consult the linked source for the complete document.

Employment increased in May, and the unemployment rate returned to its March level of 5.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The jobless rate was 5.4 percent in April. Nonfarm payroll employment, as measured by the survey of employers, rose by 348,000, with increases spread across a broad range of industries. Total employment, as measured by the household survey, also rose in May.

Unemployment (Household Survey Data)

The unemployment rate, at 5.6 percent in May, has remained within a narrow range (5.4 to 5.8 percent) since late 1994. Among the major worker groups, the jobless rate for adult women increased by 0.3 percentage point to 5.0 percent, while the rates for adult men (4.8 percent), teenagers (16.4 percent), whites (4.9 percent), blacks (10.2 percent), and Hispanics (9.2 percent) showed little or no change in May. The number of unemployed persons was 7.4 million. (See table A-1.)

Total Employment and the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)

Total employment rose by 367,000 to 126.5 million in May. Employment has increased by 1.5 million since December, after showing little growth through most of 1995. The employment-population ratio--the proportion of the population age 16 years and older with jobs--edged up to 63.1 percent in May. At 4.3 million, about a quarter of a million fewer persons worked part time for economic reasons in May than in April. These are persons who would have preferred to work full time. (See tables A-1 and A-3.)

The number of persons who held more than one job totaled 7.8 million (not seasonally adjusted) in May. These multiple jobholders made up 6.2 percent of all employed persons. (See table A-9.)

The civilian labor force rose by 550,000 in May to a seasonally adjusted level of 133.9 million. As a result, the labor force participation rate rose 0.3 percentage point to 66.9 percent. After having been little changed for most of 1995, the civilian labor force has increased by about 1.6 million since December. (See table A-1.)

Persons Not in the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)

About 1.5 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the labor force in May--that is, they wanted and were available for work but had stopped looking for jobs sometime in the prior 12 months. The number of discouraged workers--persons who had stopped looking for work specifically because they believed there were no jobs available for them-- totaled 352,000 in May. (See table A-9.)

Industry Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey Data)

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 348,000 in May to 119.2 million, after seasonal adjustment. Employment growth had averaged 191,000 per month from December through April. (See table B-1.)

Employment in the services industry expanded by 181,000 in May, after a smaller-than-usual gain in April. Increases occurred in nearly all components of the industry. Growth was particularly strong in business services (67,000), where help supply services alone added 48,000 workers. In addition, computer and data processing services continued its upward trend, with an increase of 15,000 jobs. Engineering and management services, an industry closely related to business services, also added 22,000 jobs. Health services employment rose by 39,000, as gains were spread among medical offices, hospitals, and nursing and personal care facilities.

Following a strong gain in April, retail trade employment was up by 46,000 in May. Most of the increase was in department stores, where little growth had occurred during the prior year. Employment in food stores had been flat through April of this year, but rose by 10,000 in May. By contrast, after showing strength in April, seasonal hiring in eating and drinking places was slightly less than usual for the month, resulting in a small decline after seasonal adjustment.

Finance, insurance, and real estate employment was up by 20,000 in May, as job growth occurred in each component. Continued strength in mortgage brokerages and real estate reflected improvements in the housing market.

Transportation employment, which had been flat in April, rose by 18,000 in May. Increases were concentrated in local transit and in trucking and warehousing. Employment in communications continued its upward trend in May, adding 3,000 jobs, while employment in public utilities continued its slow and steady decline.

Government employment increased by 43,000 in May. Most of the growth was in the noneducation component of local government and partly reflected hiring of temporary workers for primary elections. State government employment also was up, by 7,000 in May, and by 19,000 so far this year.

In the goods-producing sector, construction employment rose by 28,000 in May--about the average monthly increase since October of last year. All of the May growth in construction occurred among special trade contractors. Manufacturing employment held steady over the month, after having declined by 282,000 from its most recent peak in March 1995. Within manufacturing, motor vehicles and equipment added 10,000 jobs in May; there were small gains in a number of other industries as well. Employment continued to decline, however, in several other manufacturing industries, including apparel, printing and publishing, and food processing.

Weekly Hours (Establishment Survey Data)

The average workweek for production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls held at 34.3 hours in May, after seasonal adjustment. The factory workweek, at 41.7 hours, was up by 0.2 hour in May and was the longest since March 1995. Factory overtime was unchanged at 4.6 hours. (See table B-2.)

The index of aggregate weekly hours of private production or nonsupervisory workers on nonfarm payrolls rose 0.1 percent in May to 135.4 (1982=100), after seasonal adjustment. The manufacturing index increased by 0.5 percent to 106.2. (See table B-5.)

Hourly and Weekly Earnings (Establishment Survey Data)

Average hourly earnings of private production or nonsupervisory workers on nonfarm payrolls rose 3 cents in May, after seasonal adjustment, to $11.75. Average weekly earnings were up $1.03 to $403.03. Over the year, average hourly earnings increased by 3.4 percent and average weekly earnings by 3.7 percent. (See table B-3.)

Revisions in Establishment Survey Data

In accordance with annual practice, the establishment survey data have been revised to reflect comprehensive universe counts of payroll jobs (benchmarks) and updated bias and seasonal adjustment factors. In addition, BLS has implemented new seasonal adjustment procedures for these data. Benchmark counts are derived principally from unemployment insurance tax records for March 1995; the benchmark process resulted in revisions to all not seasonally adjusted data series from April 1994 forward, the time period since the last benchmark was established. All seasonally adjusted data beginning with January 1988 also have been revised. Although the usual practice is to revise 5 years of seasonally adjusted data with benchmark updates, additional years have been included with this release to allow fuller incorporation of an improved seasonal adjustment methodology. The new seasonal adjustment procedures, based on X-12 ARIMA (Auto- Regressive Integrated Moving Average) software developed by the Bureau of the Census, control for the effect of varying survey intervals (also known as the 4- versus 5-week effect), thereby providing improved measurement of over-the-month changes and underlying economic trends.

The June 1996 issue of Employment and Earnings will contain an article that discusses the effects of benchmark and post-benchmark revisions. This issue also will provide revised seasonal adjustment factors for March through October 1996 and revised estimates for all regularly published tables containing national establishment survey data on employment, hours, and earnings. A forthcoming BLS bulletin will contain all historical data revised as a result of this benchmark and updated seasonal adjustment factors. The full history of all establishment data series is available on magnetic tape (call 202-606-5957). These data are also available from LABSTAT, the Bureau's public database, on the INTERNET at http://stats.bls.gov. Revised data for the series shown in tables B-1 through B-6 of this release are in the /pub/special.request/ee directory.

Further information on the revisions released today may be obtained by calling 202-606-6555.

(In thousands)

HOUSEHOLD DATA Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age

1/ The population figures are not adjusted for seasonal variation; therefore, identical numbers appear in the unadjusted and seasonally adjusted columns.

1/ The population figures are not adjusted for seasonal variation; therefore, identical numbers appear in the unadjusted and seasonally adjusted columns. NOTE: Detail for the above race and Hispanic-origin groups will not sum to totals because data for the "other races" group are not presented and Hispanics are included in both the white and black population groups.

(In thousands)

1/ Unemployment as a percent of the civilian labor force. 2/ Seasonally adjusted unemployment data for service occupations are not available because the seasonal component, which is small relative to the trend-cycle and irregular components, cannot be separated with sufficient precision.

1/ Not available.

(Percent)

1/ Not available. NOTE: This range of alternative measures of labor underutilization replaces the U1-U7 range published in table A-7 of this release prior to 1994. Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. For further information, see "BLS introduces new range of alternative unemployment measures," in the October 1995 issue of the Monthly Labor Review.

1/ Unemployment as a percent of the civilian labor force.

(In thousands)

1/ Data refer to persons who have searched for work during the prior 12 months and were available to take a job during the reference week. 2/ Includes thinks no work available, could not find work, lacks schooling or training, employer thinks too young or old, and other types of discrimination. 3/ Includes those who did not actively look for work in the prior 4 weeks for such reasons as child-care and transportation problems, as well as a small number for which reason for nonparticipation was not determined. 4/ Includes persons who work part time on their primary job and full time on their secondary job(s), not shown separately.

ESTABLISHMENT DATA ESTABLISHMENT DATA