Payroll employment increased for a second straight month in May, gaining 0.1% led by adds in health care and retail trade, partly offset by continued weakness in manufacturing - where employment has declined 1.2% since December.

The real story in this release was job vacancies though, which fell another ~4% after April’s ~3% decline and sit nearly 16% lower than they were a year ago.

At ~480K, vacancies are at their lowest level in almost eight years while unemployment remains elevated, making a near-term recovery in the labour market highly unlikely.