Marketwatch reports a survey of economists finds that payrolls are expected to show the economy lost another half a million jobs in May. The economists surveyed expect the unemployment rate is to climb to 9.2%
The Labor Department will release the May employment report on Friday at 8:30 a.m. It's the biggest economic release in a week chock full of data covering every sector of the economy.
In "normal circumstances," such heavy job losses "would be seen as very bad news," wrote Brian Bethune and Nigel Gault, economists at IHS Global Insight. But these times are anything but normal.
Investors "may be encouraged that the pace of job losses appears to be slowing -- albeit marginally," wrote Meny Grauman, an economist for CIBC World Markets. It would be the smallest monthly job loss since 380,000 were lost in October in the wake of the financial panic that followed the collapse of Lehman Bros.
500,000 lost jobs will be the lowest monthly number since last October. It may seem like good news to some that a smaller number of jobs are being lost but 500,000 lost jobs is not really a positive sign. It's a sign of a very unhealthy economy. The May jobs report will be out next Friday.
