Employment south of the border shook the market up Friday, rising by 2.5 million in May, with the jobless rate declining to 13.3%.
Tidings from the U.S. Labor Department proved far better than economists had been expecting and indicated that an economic turnaround could be close at hand.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting payrolls to drop by 8.333 million and the unemployment rate to rise to 19.5% from April’s 14.7%.
The May gain was by far the biggest one-month jobs gain in U.S. history since at least 1939.
The jump in employment almost perfectly mirrored the 2.7-million decrease in workers who reported being on temporary layoff.
