U.S. Private Sector Axes 532,000 Jobs In May

[Purveyor]

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. private employers chopped more than half a million jobs in May, signaling job conditions remain tough and dashing some hopes the economy was not deteriorating as rapidly as thought, a report on Wednesday showed.

U.S. companies axed 532,000 jobs last month, though this was fewer than the revised 545,000 jobs lost in April, according to the ADP National Employment Report.

The April figure was originally a decline of 491,000.

The median forecast of economists surveyed by Reuters for the ADP Employer Services report, jointly developed with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, was for a loss of 520,000 private-sector jobs in May.

The ADP job reading is seen as a predictor of the government's monthly payroll figure. The Labor Department will release its May employment report at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Economy/idUSTRE5522Z120090603

[brentspeak]

1. Is this the "lagging indicator" the "the economy is stabilizing" cheerleaders have been promising?

[notadmblnd]

2. at half a million jobs lost per month, by the end of the year 3 million more people

will be out of work, for a total of 6,000,000 this year alone. I wonder how much longer it will be before no one in this country has a job?

[lonestarlib]

3. Yeah, aren't all the stats the market uses "lagging indicators"?

ADP figures are always higher than the Labor Department, but the real unemployment figure is almost twice what the market uses. Buy, hey, I heard on Bloomberg last night that the recession ended in May.

[dotymed]

4. JUST THINK

If we were Wall Street thieves this would be great news. More
taxpayer billions in our pocket!

[4lbs]

5. The recession isn't over until we have a quarter with positive GDP growth. That likely won't happen

until the last 3 months of the year.