Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 2.5 million in May, and the unemployment rate declined to 13.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. These improvements in the labor market reflected a limited resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed in March and April due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. In May, employment rose sharply in leisure and hospitality, construction, education and health services, and retail trade. By contrast, employment in government continued to decline sharply. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note. tweet at 8:35am: *BLS: LARGE NUMBER OF WORKERS CLASSIFIED AS EMPLOYED BUT ABSENTMay sees biggest jobs increase ever of 2.5 million as economy starts to recover from coronavirus Employment stunningly rose by 2.5 million in May and the jobless rate declined to 13.3% according to data Friday from the Labor Department that was far better than economists had been expecting and indicated that an economic turnaround could be close at hand. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting payrolls to drop by 8.333 million and the unemployment rate to rise to 19.5% from April’s 14.7%. Stock market futures burst higher following the report and indicated an open of nearly 600 points higher for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The May gain was by far the biggest one-month jobs gain in U.S. history since at least 1939. The jump in employment almost perfectly mirrored the 2.7 million decrease in workers who reported being on temporary lay