Unexpectedly strong hiring across the US economy has piled pressure onto the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates later this summer if it skips an increase at its forthcoming policy meeting this month.
Payrolls growth once again boomed in May, with nearly 340,000 positions added to a broad swath of sectors, data released on Friday showed. The result underscored the powerful momentum that sustains the US labour market, and raised the prospect that the central bank has not yet damped demand sufficiently to get inflation under control.
The jobs report comes as Fed officials debate what to do at their next policy meeting, with several among the top ranks advocating for the central bank to forego a rate rise, while keeping the door open to further tightening later.