Wow. Credit BLS for putting the caveat in the front:
Total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 431,000 in May, reflecting the hiring of 411,000 temporary employees to work on Census 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Private-sector employment changed little (+41,000). Manufacturing, temporary help services, and mining added jobs, while construction employment declined. The unemployment rate edged down to 9.7 percent. Household Survey Data The number of unemployed persons was 15.0 million in May. The unemployment rate edged down to 9.7 percent, the same rate as in the first 3 months of 2010.
About ten minutes before the numbers came out, CBS’s Mark Knoller reported:
Today at the WH: They’re expecting good news in the unemployment numbers due out in 11 minutes. Perhaps half a million new jobs.
UPDATE: Wow. Did President Obama get bad intelligence from his own administration about what his own Department of Labor would say?
“We added jobs for five of the last six months and expect to see strong job growth on Friday’s report,” Obama said, referring to imminent official employment figures for May.