Signs of a Slowing Economy?

In other words, the economy was doing much better just a short time ago, but now it's doing just a wee bit worse. Gotcha.

Thanks for the media informing folks just how well the economy has been doing all along and not focusing solely on the negative.

Oh, and the unemployment rate is at 4.6%. That sounds like a good economy to me, but the media types will try to focus on the negatives instead:

The count of new jobs generated last month — 75,000 — was the smallest since October, when hiring practically stalled as companies were jolted by fallout from the Gulf Coast hurricanes. Job gains for March and April turned out to be weaker than previously reported.

On the other hand, the unemployment rate dropped a notch from 4.7 percent in April to 4.6 percent in May, the lowest since July 2001.

The payrolls figure and the unemployment rate come from two different economic surveys, which can sometimes provide — as in Friday's case — a conflicting picture of what is happening in the labor market.

The seasonally adjusted overall civilian unemployment rate — 4.6 percent in May — is based on a survey of 60,000 households. It showed that 288,000 people said they found employment last month, outpacing the number of people who couldn't find work.

Economists tend to put more stock, however, in the much broader business survey of 400,000 work sites that is used to calculate the payroll figures.

In May, job cuts at factories, retailing and other fields tempered job gains in education and health care, financial activities and elsewhere.