The 54,000 figure was around 100,000 below consensus expectations, and figures for March and April were also revised downwards, from 221,000 to 194,000 and from 244,000 to 232,000 respectively.
Private sector employment rates also fell significantly, adding 83,000 jobs on the month compared with an average of 244,000 for the three previous months. The unemployment rate also rose unexpected, from 9% in April to 9.1%.
The Dow Jones fell by over 1% at the start of trading before recovering slightly by 10:00 EDT time, when it was down by 0.76%. Ten-year Treasury yields dipped back below 3% on the news.
Earlier this week M&G’s Mike Riddell said US economic data points over the last month, and the last ten days in particular, was akin to a “horror show”.
“The extent of this slowdown is becoming a big concern, particularly with a potentially big fiscal consolidation on the way,” said Capital Economics’ chief US economist Paul Ashworth.
