A surprisingly positive May jobs report showing the largest month-to-month job increase in history indicated that the United States appears to be recovering from the COVID-19 outbreak from an economic as well as a health perspective, CNBC reported.
Despite being projected to decline by 8.3 million by some economists, non-farm payrolls actually increased by 2.5 million in May, a record turnaround after two of the most catastrophic unemployment months ever caused by COVID-19-related economic shutdowns.
The unemployment rate dropped from 14.7% in April to 13.3% in May, much better than the projected 19.5% unemployment projected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones. From CNBC:
As it turned out, May’s numbers showed the U.S. may well be on the road to recovery after its fastest plunge in history.
“It seems the damage from the nationwide lockdown was not as severe or as lasting as we feared a month ago,” said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.
How do “expert” economists miss a short term prediction by 10 million jobs? Well they are surely not to be trusted.
Every day, I follow the economic news, and every day, economists miss the mark by at least a mile.
Weather forecasters forecasting out ten or fifteen years from now have a better record, I think.