The white-hot U.S. job market cooled to merely red hot last month, a mixed blessing for workers worried about runaway inflation and the possibility of a recession.Employers added 390,000 jobs in May — down from the 428,000 added in April — and the unemployment rate remained stable, according to the latest report Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report.While nearly all the private-sector jobs lost during the pandemic have returned, the pace of employment growth is noticeably slowing.The economy is starting to shift into a period of stable, steady growth, President Joe Biden said in an address Friday after the announcement.“We should expect to see more moderation,” Biden said. “We aren’t likely to see the kind of blockbuster job reports month after month like we have over this past year. But that’s a good thing. That’s a sign of a healthy economy.”A (near) full recoveryThe U.S. employment market has almost fully healed from the staggering losses suffered during the worst of the pandemic.“We are on the verge of a complete private-sector recovery, with 99% of private sector jobs lost in the pandemic now recovered,” Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, tweeted Friday.The unemployment rate in May held steady for the third straight month at 3.6%. The number of Americans out of work was about 6 million — similar to pre-COVID levels, the Labor Department reports.Still, more moderation is needed to avoid a downturn.Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Analytics, says job growth needs to co …
