May’s employment report was a bit of a mixed bag. The upside was that the economy created 139,000 jobs, substantially exceeding expectations of 125,000. But there were several small problems. It was less than the previous month’s 147,000, the prior two months were revised down a significant 95,000, and the participation rate dropped 0.2% to 62.4%. In addition, the mix of job creation was heavily lop-sided as the two industries of health care, and leisure and hospitality accounted for 79% of all jobs created. Furthermore, the diffusion index, which measures how well job creation is spread through the economy, landed squarely on 50, indicating that just as many (sub) industries were losing jobs as gaining them. That’s a rare occurrence as it has only fallen below the 50 level twice in the past 15 years (ex-covid).