Economy added 139,000 jobs last month

Technically, it was a slowdown.

The US jobs market added 139,000 jobs in May, which was more than the 125,000 Dow Jones estimate but a dip from April’s downwardly revised 147,000, according to the Labor Department.

The unemployment rate remained at 4.2%, while the number of discouraged and underemployed workers also held steady at 7.8%, CNBC reported. FactSet economists forecast the addition of 130,000 jobs last month, with the unemployment rate holding steady, per CNN.

A bulk of the employment gains came from the healthcare industry, which added 62,000 jobs. Meanwhile, government jobs dropped by 22,000, showing the impacts of President Trump and DOGE-led efforts to downsize the federal workforce. (We hear that Musk and Trump are on great terms nowadays.)

Trump’s ever-changing policy decisions, particularly around tariffs, have led to an incredibly uncertain economic backdrop, with analysts and business leaders alike waiting for more signs about where things might go from here.

“This is not a freeze, but a temporary chill,” Ger Doyle, North American regional president at employment firm ManpowerGroup, said in a commentary, per CNN. “Employees are staying put, employers are holding steady, and everyone is waiting for clearer signs.”

The idea that this jobs report wasn’t much of a crystal ball was echoed by other employment experts.

“The May jobs report still has everyone waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, the jobs rating platform, told CNBC. “This report shows the job market standing tall, but as economic headwinds stack up cumulatively, it’s only a matter of time before the job market starts straining against those headwinds.”