May employment

This morning BLS on employment announced that employment increased by 431,000 in May. The good news was tempered by the fact that much of this increase was 411,000 temporary Census workers. The unemployment rate declined slightly to 9.7%

Economists had expected much higher employment numbers -- ranging from 515,000 by those surveyed by DowJones to 540,000 of those polled by the New York Times.

It is interesting to note that manufacturing employment increased. Manufacturing still faces a large structural employment deficit however.

Another bit of good news in the data is that the number of involuntary underemployed (part-time for economic reasons) also decline. As I noted last month, the rise in involuntary underemployed was troubling - as this is a coincident indicator. It is good to see this heading in the right direction.