WASHINGTON, June 6 (Xinhua) -- The rising oil prices and lingering tariff uncertainty have clouded the outlook for the U.S. employment market, despite its recent rebound, experts have warned.
The U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs in May, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.3 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday.
The data marked an unexpected recovery amid the soaring domestic gas prices fueled by the joint military operations carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran.
"The job growth was a surprise. It was entirely in local government, leisure and hospitality and healthcare," said Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
"The healthcare will continue, the local government job growth was an anomaly -- employment had been pretty stagnant. The leisure and hospitality is a big surprise. This is largely discretionary spending and is surprising that people feeling pinched would be spending more at hotels and restaurants," Baker said.
It seems that "AI construction and the strong stock market are driving the economy and jobs," Gary Hufbauer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told Xinhua.
However, some sectors shed jobs, including financial services, which lost 22,000 jobs, as well as the transportation/warehousing industry, according to the report.
Economists believe that the positive trend will turn negative in the next jobs report.
"My guess is that it (will be) largely reversed in June," Baker said.
"The big question is what happens to oil prices. If the Strait is reopened and prices continue to edge lower, we can still (be) on path of modest growth, as long as (U.S. President Donald) Trump doesn't hit us with a new round of tariffs," Baker said.
The disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has had a massive impact on global energy prices, as 20 percent of the world's oil traverses the key waterway.
Meanwhile, economists also fret over a 55 percent uptick in diesel fuel costs -- a key input for construction, transportation and shipping. Such an increase could push up prices of consumer goods, U.S. media reported. ■
