Equitable Growth’s Jobs Day Graphs: May 2021 Report Edition

On June 4, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data on the U.S. labor market during the month of May. Below are five graphs compiled by Equitable Growth staff highlighting important trends in the data.

The prime-age employment-to-population ratio increased slightly in May from 76.9 percent to 77.1 percent as the labor market added 559,000 jobs.

Unemployment rates seem to have fallen for all racial and ethnic groups, but remain significantly higher for Black workers at 9.1 percent and Latinx workers at 7.3 percent.

Women’s employment rate increased 0.3 percentage points to 53.1 percent while men’s employment rate increased 0.1 percentage point to 63.4 percent.

An increasing proportion of unemployed workers reentered the labor force, while the unemployment rate declined to 5.8 percent in May.

Fewer unemployed workers have been out of employment for more than 15 weeks, led by a decline in unemployed workers without jobs for 27 weeks or more.