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Job Growth Slow, Jobless Claims Up, GDP Revised Down

The number of jobs on private employers' payrolls grew by a modest 133,000 positions from April to May, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report.

ADP's monthly report is sometimes a decent barometer of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics will say when it issues its employment estimates. We're due to hear from BLS about the May employment situation on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

As The Associated Press notes, the ADP estimate is another sign "that the job market is recovering only slowly." The Wall Street Journal says that 133,000 is "fewer than the 150,000 expected by economists." Also of note: ADP revised down its estimate of job growth in April, to 113,000 from the initial estimate of 119,000.

Coming up in the next few minutes:

-- The weekly report on claims for unemployment insurance, from the Employment and Training Administration.

-- A second look at gross domestic product growth in the first quarter, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

We'll update with the news from those releases.

Update at 8:35 a.m. ET. Jobless Claims Rise; GDP Revised Down.

Both of the fresh government reports on the negative side of the news:

-- The number of first-time claims for jobless benefits grew by 10,000 last week from the week before, according to the Employment and Training Administration. There were 383,000 such claims.

-- The economy grew at a slightly slower pace than previously thought in the first quarter. The Bureau of Economic Analysis says GDP expanded at a 1.9 percent annual rate, a little less than the initial estimate of 2.2 percent.

Also this morning, there's this:

"In May, the nation's employers announced plans to cut 61,887 workers from their payrolls, the most since last September when layoffs totaled 115,730, according to the latest job-cut report released Thursday by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc."

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.