The pundits spoke, predicted and prophesied with their pens. Told us to expect an increase of 1/10th of a percent or 172,000 unemployed people for the month of May, but the number reported was five times that amount, 1/2 of a percent or 861,000 people. The largest single month increase in 22 years.
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This may come as a surprise to a few. On Friday, June 6th, the day the unemployment numbers were reported, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reacted by losing 394 points and may have contributed to a shift in funds from equities to commodities, contributing to oil's $11 increase, the largest single day increase in history.
Economics, more than any other social science is based on statistics. The comparisons and relationship of statistics ie: Okun's Law–for every 2% decline in GDP there is a resulting 1% increase in the unemployment rate.
Increasingly, over the past 20 years, economists have shifted their role from that of formulating models, to that of predicting changes in a wide array of monetary and economic factors.
Indeed if you have invested using these short term predictions you have done very poorly. The track record of economist's predictions has to be counted amongst the most dismal of all human endeavors.
Not to be outdone, there was not an analyst or pundit present leading up to the June 6th report that even mentioned the possibility of a large increase in the unemployment rate.