June 5, 2020 – U.S. total nonfarm employment rose by 2.5 million over the month in May, but remained 11.7% below the year ago level
The U.S. Employment Situation report for May contained a pleasant surprise: an increase in jobs from April and a decrease in the unemployment rate. Evidently, more employees were called back to work than were laid off during the month. This reflects the gradual national relaxation of restrictions in place to control the outbreak.
Total nonfarm employment rose by 2.5 million over the month in May, but remained 11.7% below the year ago level (seasonally adjusted). Both March and April jobs data were revised down by a total of 642,000. Overall, U.S. jobs were down 19.6 million from the peak in February, which translated into a decline of 12.8%. Jobs increased in leisure and hospitality, construction, education and health services, and retail trade. Government jobs declined sharply.
The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate fell to 13.3% in May, down from 14.7% in April. The May rate was the second highest (after April 2020) on record going back to 1948.
Weekly Roundup
We’ve added another new weekly indicator! It is weekly business applications data from the U.S. Census Bureau. It tracks These data reflect weekly applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) in Arizona which are likely to result in employment and wages. These include applications: (a) from a corporate entity, (b) that indicate they are hiring employees, purchasing a business or changing organizational type, (c) that provide a first wages-paid date (planned wages); or (d) that have a NAICS industry code in manufacturing (31-33), retail stores (44), health care (62), or restaurants/food service (72). Applications for EINs occur before the jobs and wages are added, so this is a leading indicator.
The latest data for the week ended May 30 suggest that activity weakened compared to last year. Further, the 52-week moving average is gradually losing momentum, with growth up only 1.4% over the year.
Arizona’s weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance continued to drift down last week. For the week ended May 30, there were 22,012 regular initial claims and 59,086 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Insurance. According to the Arizona Department of Employment Security, they have paid out $1.5 billion in regular and Pandemic benefits since March 28. Keep in mind that these benefits are subject to income tax.
For the nation, initial claims fell last week as well. There were 1.9 million regular initial claims and 623,000 initial Pandemic claims for the week ended May 30. The national total for Pandemic claims was less than half the prior week total, a suspiciously large drop. The national pandemic claims are subject to significant weekly revisions, so we will have to wait and see if that number holds up.
The national hotel occupancy rate increased again last week, to 36.6%. That was roughly one-half of the rate last year, but an improvement nonetheless.
U.S. movie ticket sales increased again for the week ended May 28, but remained extremely low. Only five movies were released during the week, compared to 126 this time last year. Releases will pick up significantly later this summer and that will significantly boost sales.
Passengers passing through TSA checkpoints rose modestly again for the week ended May 30 to 2.1 million. Air travel has a long road ahead to get back to normal at this time of year, which would be roughly 16 million passengers screened.
Restaurant activity improved again last week, according to data from OpenTable. These data reflect seated diners at restaurants and thus reflects just one segment of the industry. Seated diners at restaurants were down 54.6% and 64.2% for the week ended May 30 (compared to a year ago) in Arizona and Phoenix, respectively. That was better than the U.S. as a whole, where seated diners were down 84.5% from a year ago.
Mobility also improved for the week ended May 23, as measured by Google Maps. Arizonans are gradually resuming travel to workplaces and to retail and recreation places. As usual, there is still a lot of ground to make up to get back to pre-outbreak levels of activity.
One quirk of these data is that they are expressed relative to January 2020 and are not seasonally adjusted. Thus any seasonality in travel patterns may impact our perceptions of the recovery using these data.
As the impacts of social distancing work through the economy due to the spread of COVID-19, tracking the performance of the labor market and the travel and tourism sector will be key. While these are leading indicators and should help us to spot an emerging recovery once the virus is controlled.
AZ Coronavirus Cases | US Coronavirus Cases | Unemployment Claims AZ | Unemployment Claims U.S.
U.S. Hotel Occupancy Rate | U.S. Movie $ Ticket Sales | U.S. Movie Releases | TSA Passenger Throughput |
Restaurant Seated Diners | Arizona Business Applications
Daily Indicators
Use your cursor as a tooltip and click on charts to view values. Click on the names of indicators listed at the bottom any chart to switch them on/off to view fewer at one time and make comparisons. Icon at the bottom of each table allows you to download data and share.
Weekly Indicators
Note: An advanced number for Arizona Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance is released on Tuesdays covering the week ending the previous Saturday. We publish the advance number here on Tuesdays. The official release is issued on Thursdays at which point we replace the advance estimate with the official count.
Note: The official Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance numbers for the U.S. are released every Thursday morning covering the week ending on the previous Saturday.
Note: Weekly movie ticket sales and number of releases are published on Thursdays covering the previous week beginning on Friday.
