What Quality Jobs? Over Half Of May Payroll Growth Is In Education, Leisure And Temp Help Jobs

If there was some hope that in April the trend of the US adding low-quality (as in low-paying) jobs may finally be coming to an end, this came to a quick end in May, when more than half of the 217K jobs added were in the lowest paying sectors. Specifically:

Education and health: +63K
Leisure and Hospitality: +39K
Temp Help Services: +14K

These three lowest paying categories amount to 116K, or well over half of the total jobs gains. What's more, if there was some hope for a construction renaissance in April after 34K jobs were added in the sector, in May this too came to a grinding halt after only 6K construction jobs were added. The best paying jobs: financials and information, also deteriorated, with fins adding 3K in May, half of the April gain, while 5K Information jobs were outright lost in the past month, compared to a gain of 1K jobs.

The good news, if any: retail jobs did not make up the fluff of job gains as they have in the past, with just 12.5K retail jobs added in May, and finally: all that channel stuffing appears to be paying off finally as 10K manufacturing jobs were added in the month, up from 4K in April.

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