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The U.S economy rebounded with surprising strength last month as businesses began to reopen from the coronavirus lockdown. U.S. employers added 2.5 million jobs in May, as the unemployment rate fell to 13.3%. That's still extremely high by historical standards, but much better than forecasters were expecting. It reflects an improvement over April's jobless rate of 14.7%. April saw nearly 20.7 million jobs lost, as the U.S. slammed the brakes on its economy in a desperate effort to slow the spread of the pandemic. (Horsley, 6/5)

2.5 million people gained jobs in May, as states and counties began to reopen around the country. There are hopes that these figures show the country is moving away from the nadir of the crisis — the rocky bottom below which the United States will sink no further. Yet, with some 30 million workers collecting unemployment benefits, the labor market has been upended. (Rosenberg, 6/5)

Leisure and hospitality workers made up almost half the increase, with 1.2 million going back to work after a reported loss of 7.5 million in April. Jobs in bars and restaurants increased by 1.4 million as states began to relax social distancing measures. (Cox, 6/5)

The May jobs report shattered economists’ expectations of a loss of nearly 8 million jobs that was expected to send the unemployment rate to 19 percent or above. (Lane, 6/5)

The Congressional Budget Office, in a letter Thursday to members of Congress, said it estimated expanding enhanced jobless benefits through January 2021 would mean five in every six claimants would make more money from unemployment insurance than from work. The program pays workers an extra $600 a week and is currently set to expire in July. Lawmakers are debating whether to extend it as part of a new stimulus bill. (Mitchell, 6/5)

Other evidence has also shown that the job market meltdown triggered by the coronavirus has bottomed out. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits has declined for nine straight weeks. And the total number of people receiving such aid has essentially leveled off. (Rugaber, 6/5)

Treasury yields and U.S. stock futures jumped after the report, while the dollar spiked against the yen. “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,” the Labor Department said in a statement. (Mitrieva, 6/5)

The Robert Garcia that Robert Garcia always saw in the mirror was the Marine who jumped out of helicopters, the guy who built houses, rode a Harley and had plenty of buddies. Now, thanks to the coronavirus, his reflection shows a man alone in a single room in Santa Fe, N.M., out of work, looking outside and wondering what the neighbors are thinking when the food bank delivers his meals. “People see them coming and I feel this anxiety that they look at me in a different way,” Garcia said. “Like, ‘What’s wrong with this dude that he’s getting food like that?’ ” (Fisher, Hernandez and Sellers, 6/4)

The U.S. economy’s steep slide appears to be leveling off amid signs that layoffs are easing, travel is modestly picking up, and Americans are beginning to eat out again, but a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is still a long way off, with economic activity at deeply depressed levels. On Thursday, the latest sign that the economic decline may be bottoming out came as the government reported that 1.9 million Americans had applied for unemployment insurance during the last week of May — a painfully high number but the lowest since the novel coronavirus started spreading widely in the country in March. (Long and Rosenberg, 6/4)

Factories and stores are reopening, economies are reawakening – but many jobs just aren’t coming back. That’s the harsh truth facing workers laid off around the U.S. and the world, from restaurants in Thailand to car factories in France, whose livelihoods fell victim to a virus-driven recession that’s accelerating decline in struggling industries and upheaval across the global workforce. (Chalton and Vejpongsa, 6/5)

Overall, most Americans say their family has been financially affected in some way by the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent lockdowns. Almost one in five Americans describe the impact as a hardship. Larger numbers describe it as inconvenient or difficult but would not go so far as to call it a hardship. Most Americans, however, remain optimistic that jobs will come back. (Backus and De Pinto, 6/4)

A flood of jobless claims continued to pour into the state Department of Labor last week even as officials warned that some workers face a loss of benefits. About 149,163 claims were processed – down slightly from the previous week, but still far more than during the worst month of the Great Recession. Since mid-March, the department has processed more than 2.3 million claims, found 928,1010 of them valid and issued at least a first payment to 715,000 people, according to Mark Butler, the state labor commissioner. (Kanell, 6/4)