Do you want to take the number of jobs predicted by analysts to be added for May? Or double it and pass it along? The Labor Department did the latter, announcing yesterday that the US added a seasonally adjusted 172,000 jobs last month, well above expectations of ~80,000 from Dow Jones. It’s a good sign that the labor market has been steadily emerging from an earlier slump, despite continued concerns about inflation, oil prices, and the impact of AI.

Yesterday’s jobs report also positively revised the figures for March (up by 29,000 to 214,000) and April (up by 64,000 to 179,000), raising the three-month average to 188,000 jobs gained—a two-year high.

Where did May’s new jobs come from? Mostly, the FIFA World Cup:

• Leisure and hospitality added 70,000 jobs with the tournament taking place in 11 US cities starting next week, fueling hiring in bars, restaurants, and hotels.
• The local government sector also gained 55,000 jobs—possibly reflecting hiring for security and entertainment roles (and more people to check $100 tickets on train rides to stadiums), an economist told Bloomberg.

And now…the bad news

You didn’t think we’d send you into the weekend with a jobs report story that didn’t have a few red flags, did you?

Unemployment: The rate held at 4.3%. But the number of people without jobs for 27 weeks or longer climbed to 27.5% in May—the highest it’s been since December 2021.

Earnings vs. inflation: Average hourly earnings rose 3.4% in May compared to a year earlier. However, with inflation up 3.8% over the year, lower-income Americans are likely feeling a price squeeze.

What’s next? Persistent inflation and a surprisingly strong jobs report make a quarter-point Fed interest rate hike by the end of the year more likely than a cut, per FedWatch—odds that sent the stock market plunging yesterday. Plus, if oil prices remain high, low-income consumers may tighten their purse strings, and even wealthier Americans could start to tighten their Hermès belts, too.—DL

SpaceX faces a long wait to get into S&P 500. Elon Musk’s company is expected to make its stock market debut on June 12 with the largest IPO ever and a valuation of around $1.75 trillion, but the companies behind major stock indexes are divided over whether to fast-track it in. The Nasdaq changed its rules to speed up entry to the Nasdaq-100, while S&P Global said Thursday it won’t relax its requirements. For companies to join the S&P 500—the index considered the benchmark for US equities—they must trade for a year and be profitable for four trailing quarters (SpaceX has never been profitable). That means other companies with upcoming mega IPOs, like Anthropic and OpenAI, will also have to wait, and they won’t immediately get investment from people who passively track the index.

Senate passes $70b border enforcement bill without killing “weaponization” fund. After much wrangling and intra-GOP fighting, the Senate passed a bill allocating $70 billion to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the end of President Trump’s current term. The final vote broke along party lines, with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski as the lone Republican voting “nay.” But that ultimate party unity only came after several Republicans and Democrats tried unsuccessfully to use the bill to ensure the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for alleged victims of the DOJ, likely including Jan. 6 rioters, couldn’t be revived, holding up the funding package’s passage. The House is expected to pass the bill next week.

⏸️ Anthropic calls for a global pause on AI development. In an unexpected move for an AI company prepping for a massive IPO, the Claude maker suggested that AI companies slow or pause development to address potential harms to society as models move toward improving themselves without human input. “We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology,” a company blog post said—but stressed that this could only work with a global agreement and the ability to verify that others had stopped.—AR

As countless “look at my old pants” weight loss ads have shown us, when people start shedding pounds, they also shed their old wardrobes in favor of clothes that fit their new figures (not everything can be used as a sleep shirt).

That closet overhaul has been happening a lot lately, due, in part, to the rise of GLP-1 drugs. And since building a new wardrobe can take some trial and error, retailers are increasingly getting swamped with costly returns:

• For the last three years, there’s been an increase in apparel exchanges due to shoppers sizing down, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing return management company Narvar.
• Between 2020 and 2025, the total value of merchandise returns doubled, per Capital One Shopping research.

Downsizing downsides: While ’80s-movie-style shopping sprees are good for retailers, returns chip away at those profits. Items can’t always be resold at the same price, and stores often have to cover the additional shipping and labor costs. That’s all compounded by customers increasingly ordering multiple sizes of the same item, then sending back the ones that don’t fit.

Clothes encounters: The impact of weight loss drugs is showing up across the retail industry. Macy’s said this week it’s selling less plus-size clothing. Victoria’s Secret said it’s selling smaller-sized bras and underwear. And brides are waiting longer to buy wedding dresses closer to their big day, often due to GLP-1-aided weight loss, per the WSJ.—BC