WRAPUP 4-US jobless rate leaps to 3-1/2 year high in May

Fri Jun 6, 2008 4:50pm EDT




By Glenn Somerville
WASHINGTON, June 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate surged to 5.5 percent in May, its highest in more than 3-1/2 years, as the barely growing economy lost jobs for the fifth straight month.
The jump in the monthly jobless rate was the biggest in 22 years. Together with a whopping surge in oil prices and a flare-up in Mideast tensions, it renewed fears the U.S. economy was at growing risk of sliding into recession.
Stock prices took their biggest tumble since February 2007 as investors grew panicky at the possibility of further oil-price spikes and potential violence after an Israeli official said an attack on Iranian nuclear sites looked "unavoidable."
Economist Robert MacIntosh of Eaton Vance Management in Boston described the May US. jobless rate as a "shocker" but not enough to conclude growth was completely stalling.
"The actual payrolls number itself was consistent with what we have been seeing in terms of a slowdown but not quite a recession. But the employment rate gives you a much weaker economic outlook than the payrolls number," said MacIntosh.
The Labor Department on Friday said 49,000 jobs were shed by employers last month, on top of 28,000 in April -- for a total of 324,000 lost since the beginning of the year. May's unemployment rate was up from 5 percent in April and was the highest since October 2004.
At a swearing-in event for a new Housing and Urban Development secretary, President George W. Bush briefly referred to the disappointing jobs report but conceded only that it signaled slower growth.

You're absolutely correct.
I read the above article this morning, and the "jump" statistic, and my brain translated to "unemployment rate."
My bad.