Healthcare Drives US Job Growth in May

May job figures from BLS show that ambulatory services, which include physicians' offices, accounted for 22,800 of the new healthcare sector jobs for the month, and hospitals accounted for 4,500 new jobs.

In the first five months of 2012, healthcare created 158,300 jobs, which represent 19.2% of the 823,000 jobs created in the United States. Healthcare created 115,800 jobs in the first five months of 2011, BLS data shows

BLS data from April and May are preliminary and may be revised considerably in the coming months.

In the larger economy, nonfarm payroll employment rose by 69,000 in May. Modest job growth in transportation, warehousing and manufacturing were offset by the loss of 28,000 construction jobs. As a result, the unemployment rate rose slightly to 8.2% for the month. Job growth has declined considerably in the last three months after a hopeful start to 2012 that averaged 252,000 jobs per month in January and February, BLS reports.