Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/unemployment-rate-jumps-as-economic-woes-mount Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The nation's unemployment rate hit 5.5 percent in May as employers cut some 49,000 jobs, providing a fresh snapshot of a still-struggling U.S. economy. Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Economy.com, explains the new Labor Department report and what it means for the economy. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JEFFREY BROWN: It was, indeed, all big and all bad: the largest monthly jump in the unemployment rate in two decades; an unprecedented single-day increase in the price of oil; and a Wall Street tumble of nearly 400 points.Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, helps walk us through today's mess.Well, Mark, start with the job numbers. What details jump out at you in today's report? MARK ZANDI, Chief Economist, Moody’s Economy.com: Well, it was unambiguously bad. And of course, the half-point increase in the unemployment rate, that was the biggest one-month jump in over 20 years.We lost 50,000 jobs. And so far, since the beginning of the year, we've lost 325,000 jobs. The job losses are broad-based across lots of industries. Of course, it's housing and manufacturing, financial services, retailing, transportation.And it's all across the country. It's not just California and Florida. And many parts of the country are now losing jobs, so all of the details were pretty ugly. JEFFREY BROWN: Did it come as a big surprise to people, this much of a jump? MARK ZANDI: Yes, very much so. I think everyone was expecting a weak report. Obviously, the economy is struggling, but this was measurably weaker than I think anyone had anticipated. JEFFREY BROWN: The report at the same time shows a lot of people entering the job market. Now, would that be mostly graduates or young people coming in for the summer or after graduating? And how does that play into the larger picture? MARK ZANDI: Yes, it was a big increase in the number of people looking for work, particularly teenagers, 16- to 19-year-olds. And they probably stepped into the labor force a little earlier this summer, thinking that it might be a tough job market and that you probably should start looking a little bit earlier than normal.They probably needed the money. It's hard to get a student loan because of the financial crisis. And, of course, gas prices are up, and kids are having a hard time driving those cars, and so they need the cash.So I think that caused them to look a little bit earlier than normal. And that caused the unemployment rate to jump, one of the reasons why it jumped.