Jobs Report May 2017: Growth slows, unemployment drops

June 2, 2017

By Anthony P. Carnevale
Director, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

The Labor Department just released its jobs report for May 2017. Job growth was slower than in previous months, with only 138,000 jobs added, while the unemployment rate dropped lower to 4.3 percent.

This jobs report continues the longest running trend in jobs growth on record, but dissatisfaction with the American jobs machine continues with the voters. The number of job gains and slow wage increases continue to be sore spots. Average hourly earnings were up less than 0.2 percent compared to the previous month. This slow wage growth signals that employers are still holding the cards, and do not yet need to raise wages to keep workers. This evidence points to the fact that we are still in an employer’s market.

At a glance, this is how our numbers look:

The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent from 4.4 percent.
The underemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want to work but have given up looking, fell from 8.6 percent in April to 8.4 percent in May.
The participation rate, share of working-age people in the labor force, decreased to 62.7 percent in May from 62.9 percent in April.
5.2 million Americans were working part-time for economic reasons, or working part-time but would rather have a full-time position.
Retailers decreased payrolls by 6,100.
Employment in financial activities was up 11,000 compared to a 14,000 increase in April.
Professional and business services jobs rose by 38,000.
Jobs in leisure and hospitality were up 31,000.
Government jobs declined by 9,000.
Healthcare jobs rose by 32,300.
There was an 11,000 increase in construction payrolls.
Manufacturing did not change much, with a decline of 1,000.

We’ve had 80 consecutive months of job growth, but many Americans are still waiting on their opportunity for a middle class livelihood. Much of the dissatisfaction with job growth has also resulted from the collapse of blue-collar manufacturing jobs; and we are still behind in the manufacturing recovery.

We continue to grow in the high skills service sectors such as professional and business services, healthcare, and education, with some favorable gains in construction and mining as well.

In the end, we are still doing okay on job growth, but, the issue going forward is job quality as measured by the wages issue.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.