May Payrolls Soar By 339K Blowing Away Highest Estimate Even As People Employed Actually Tumble By 310K

With consensus expecting a modest payroll drop from 291K to 195K, the whisper number coming in  alittle higher at 225K and Goldman’s trading desk nfp matrix as follows: “a print sub 100k likely hits the tape by ~100bps and a print north of 375k hits the tape by 25 – 50bps“, literally nobody was expecting a print above 252K which was the highest forecast among economists, moments ago the BLS reported yet another blowout stunner: according to Biden’s Dept of Labor, in May the US added a whopping 339K jobs, almost double the median estimate and well above the highest forecast.

Not only was this a 4 sigma beat to expectations…

… but it was the 12th beat of expectations in the past 13 months.

And yet, while the Establishment survey was a blowout beat and the strongest print since January, the Household survey unexpectedly tumbled by the most since April 22 as it plunged by 310K jobs…

… pushing the divergence between the two series back to near record wides…

… and resulting in a 0.2% jump in the Unemployment rate which rose from 3.4% to 3.7%.

Developing