Oh darn. Employers added 339,000 jobs in May, in the latest sign that the booming labor market is keeping us from a recession. But these are experienced journalists, and they will come up with the dark cloud to hide the silver lining, by God: The Washington Post:

The unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent last month, up from 3.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

The May jobs report reveals the 29th straight month of strong job growth that has come to define the pandemic recovery economy. Economists had predicted 180,000 jobs created.

For months, employers have churned out jobs at a rate that has baffled economists. And the labor market has propelled the economy through a barrage of forces that would normally weigh on jobs creation — steep interest rate hikes, bank failures and several rounds of layoffs in tech, hitting 200,000 workers this year, according to the tech layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi.

“We are not currently in a recession, but we are likely to see one towards the end of this calendar year,” said Rand Ghayad, head of economics and global labor markets at LinkedIn. “The resilience and robustness of the U.S. labor market means the economy can absorb more Fed rate hikes than we previously thought.

Why? You know why. Wall Street is furious that workers have power in the current economy. Policy is supposed to favor people who can afford to make massive investments!

Many economists are predicting a recession later this year, especially if the Federal Reserve keeps hiking interest rates to curb inflation.

“We’re really likely to experience some kind of contraction in at least the second half of 2023, but job growth has pushed back [our expectations],” said Matt Colyar, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.

They have been predicting a recession for months, and despite best efforts by Fed chair Jerome Powell to give it to them, it hasn't happened yet.

Clap your hands if you believe in the Recession Fairy! It might work.