The latest data released by the U.S. Department of Labor recently showed that the unemployment rate, which has remained low for nearly two years, unexpectedly rose to 4% in May, the first time it has risen to this level since January 2022.
Economists pointed out that from a historical perspective, the unemployment rate of 4% is still at a low level, and the number of jobs and the size of the labor force in the United States have increased, so there is no need to worry too much that the rise in unemployment will lead to a recession. At the same time, the layoffs of large American technology companies such as Google and Amazon this year have not formed momentum in the broader labor market. Data from Moody's Analytics showed that the increase in unemployment in May was mainly affected by young people aged 20 to 24 entering or re-entering the labor market.
With the arrival of summer vacation and graduation season, the number of teenagers, college students and recent graduates who start looking for jobs usually increases. Marisa Di Natale, the company's chief labor economist, said that the state of the young workforce is very unstable. Although it is now more difficult for graduates to find jobs, there is no evidence that some kind of large-scale layoffs have occurred in the economy.Stephen Juneau, an American economist at Bank of America, said that the labor force participation rate of the prime-age workforce aged 25 to 54 is as high as 83.6%, the highest level in at least 20 years, so there is no need to worry about turbulence in the labor market and there is no sign of an imminent economic recession.
