US unemployment rises as hiring stagnates

The U.S. unemployment rate edged up one tenth of one percentage point in May, to 8.2 percent.  

From the Washington Post: "analysts say the country needs to add roughly 130,000 jobs per month for the recovery to maintain its momentum. But to truly make a dent in the unemployment rate, hiring must reach a sustained rate of 250,000 jobs per month. The country has hit that mark only three times over the past year and a half."  In June the economy added just 69,000 jobs nationwide.  Today's announcement also included downward revisions of the estimates for job growth in March and April.

Some sectors are doing well.  The health care industry has added 340,000 jobs over the past year, including 33,000 new jobs last month.  This is good news for Baltimore, where one in five jobs are health care related. Transportation and warehousing, wholesale trade, and manufacturing also added a combined 64,000 jobs in May. But the construction industry lost 28,000 jobs last month, and job creation in all other sectors was flat.

May employment figures for Maryland will be released on June 15th.