Trump hails jobs report, but unemployment rate still high

President Donald Trump took a victory lap Friday morning after government reported surprising job gains for last month, seizing on data to predict that worst of coronavirus pandemic and its ecomic disruption was in rear-view mirror.

unemployment rate dropped to a better-than-expected 13.3% , but that is still on par with what nation witnessed during Great Depression.

Trump spoke from Rose Garden hours after Labor Department said that U.S. employers ded 2.5 million workers to ir payrolls last month. Ecomists h been expecting m inste to slash ar 8 million jobs amid ongoing fallout from response to pandemic.

“This shows that what we’ve been doing is right,” Trump said of jobs numbers. “This is outstanding what’s happened today.”

Trump pitched himself as key to what he claimed would be a “rocket ship” ecomic rebound, and offered that as an argument for his reelection in vember. “I’m telling you next year, unless something happens or wrong people get in here, this will turn around,” Trump said.

It’s unclear how many jobs lost as a result of pandemic are permanently lost, wher reopenings in states will create a second surge of COVID-19 deaths. In dition, report from mid-May doesn’t reflect effect that protests across nation have h on business.

Some ecomists forecast rate could remain in double-digits through vember elections and into next year.

Trump predicted a swift bounce-back for an ecomy that was largely shuttered to slow spre of virus, saying ecomy would see a “very good” July and August and a “spectacular” fall. “We’ll go back to having greatest ecomy anywhere in world,” he said.

Trump also defended his handling of pandemic, saying that h he t acted to recommend closings more than 1 million Americans would have died. More than 108,000 people are confirmed to have lost ir lives due to COVID-19, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.

w, though, Trump said states and cities should be lifting remaining restrictions. “I don’t kw why y continue to lock down,” he said of some jurisdictions that have maintained closings.

“You do social distancing and you wear masks if you want,” Trump said, but ded that states need to reopen.

Trump also claimed “tremendous progress” is being me by pharmaceutical manufacturers on developing vaccines and rapeutics for virus.

May job gain suggests that businesses have quickly been recalling workers as states have reopened ir ecomies, but it may take months for all those who lost work in April and March to find jobs . Some ecomists forecast rate could remain in double-digits through vember elections and into next year.