US employers added 175,000 jobs in May, in a sign the economy is growing modestly, but the jobless rate rose slightly to 7.6 percent in May.
The Labour Department said on Friday that the unemployment rate rose from 7.5 percent in April.
Analysts say the increase does not actually signify growth as it occurred because more people began looking for work. About three-quarters found jobs, while the rest added to the ranks of the unemployed, increasing unemployment rate, but overall, they say the economic data wasn’t bad.
The government said the economy added 12,000 fewer jobs in April and March.
Employers have added an average of 155,000 jobs in past three months, below the average of 237,000 created from November through February.
Ira Jersey, an interest rate strategist at Credit Suisse in New York, said that the economic data was not bad overall.
“The confusing part for the market to digest initially was the unemployment rate going up a little bit,” Jersey said.
“But it went up for the right reason, the labour force expanded by the most in a long time.”
Job growth has been steady this year, despite higher taxes and federal spending cuts.
But there were signs in the report that the spending cuts and weaker global growth were weighing on the job market.
Manufacturers cut 8,000 jobs, and the federal government shed 14,000.
Both were the third straight month of cuts for those industries.
The economy grew at a solid annual rate of 2.4 percent in the first three months of the year.
