U.S. employers ramped up hiring last month and wage gains accelerated, suggesting the labour market is picking up momentum after slowing in the early months of 2015.
The U.S. Labor Department said Friday that non-farm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 280,000 in May, led by gains in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality and health-care.
Revisions showed employers added 221,000 jobs in April, down from an initially reported 223,000. March’s payroll gain of 119,000 was revised up from a previously reported 85,000.
The unemployment rate, which is obtained from a separate survey of U.S. households, was 5.5% in May, up slightly from 5.4% the prior month.
Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted payrolls would rise by 225,000 in May and the unemployment rate would hold steady at 5.4%.
Wages, meanwhile, rose at a healthy pace. Average hourly earnings of private-sector workers rose stateside by eight cents, or 0.3%, to $24.96 U.S. in May. Economists had expected a 0.2% increase in wages from April.
From a year earlier, hourly earnings rose 2.3% in May, a little better than the 2% annual pace of recent years.
