The government's jobs report for May was initially seen Friday as discouraging yet not dire, but fears grew during the day that an already struggling economy was about to take a renewed battering.

Oil prices shot up, hitting $139 a barrel — more than double the level of a year ago — and sending stocks sharply down. The threat: The higher oil goes, the longer it stays there, and the greater the danger to the economy, consumers and hiring.

Hyosub Shin/AJC (ENLARGE)

Kay Adams-McCain of Canton has decades of experience in human resources, but has settled for a retail sales job for now.

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Early in the day, the market had taken in stride the expected news that the economy shed jobs in May for the fifth consecutive month. Payrolls dropped by 49,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said, with losses especially in construction, manufacturing, retail and business services.

The official unemployment rate took its largest one-month leap since 1986 — to 5.5 percent from 5 percent.

Some experts downplayed the report that joblessness had jumped to 5.5 percent, arguing it had probably been misleadingly low.

"This is sort of catch-up to what has been happening," said Adrian Cronje, Atlanta-based director of asset allocation for Wilmington Trust Investment Management. "Payrolls have lost 324,000 jobs this year. There are seasonal effects at play, but the bigger story is that the unemployment rate has caught up."

Yet the economy has been compared to an unevenly heated burrito: As chilly as the market has been in residential real estate, other sectors are near-roasting.

Government, education and health care have been hiring. Even manufacturing — which has lost 3.7 million jobs in eight years — can have a niche that sizzles.

For instance, Ceradyne Thermo Materials Division in Clarkston has expanded from 100 employees to more than about 150 now and will end the year with about 200, according to Bruce Lockhart, the division's president.

The company has two units, one that makes "radomes" — covers used on missiles. The other, which accounts for most of the growth, makes "crucibles" used in turning sunshine to electricity, he said.

"The concept of solar energy is starting to catch on," Lockhart said.

The company has been adding accountants, machinists and engineers, as well as unskilled labor for the assembly line.

Still, about 1.4 million Americans have been seeking work for more than six months, according to the BLS.

Kerry Ludlam, 28, took time off to have a child then worked as a consultant and freelancer. But when she heard there was an opening at the Georgia chapter of the Arthritis Foundation, she jumped at it — and got the job. "I didn't have to cast a very wide net," she said.

Any job market — whether robust or feeble — is in constant churn. Even during recessions, millions of people are hired each month — it just gets harder for the average individual to land one.

It means sending more resumes, calling more companies and reaching out to more contacts.

That effort is a job in itself, longer and less personal than it used to be, said Kay Adams-McCain of Canton.

"People don't call you back," she said. "Even the headhunters used to call you back. I have fewer and fewer interviews — just three since the first of the year."

With decades of experience in human resources, she has been looking for something in her field since October, when — after a month with an employer — her position was outsourced.

In March, "just to get out of the house," she took a retail sales job. "[J.C.] Penney's is a lovely company to work for, but I am not using the skills I want to."

She works about 30 hours a week, and hopes to ring up more hours come July.

"My husband is a builder and he is still building, but it's not like it was two years ago," Adams-McCain said. "You know what the housing market is like right now."

Real estate has been a drag on growth, and Friday's BLS report echoes the notion of a slowing economy.

More than 1.55 million Americans have been out of work for more than six months — 200,000 more than in March 2002, several months after the past recession ended, according to Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project. But the jobs report also holds less gloomy evidence, said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for New Jersey-based Economic Outlook Group.

"The economy is very weak, perhaps even in recession, but it is not falling off a cliff as these numbers first suggest," he said.

For instance, the report showed little worsening in the average number of hours worked or the number of people forced to take part-time instead of full-time work.

Moreover, the number of new jobless claims has slipped: there are no signs of large-scale layoffs.

"Things are bad, but they are not getting any worse," said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University.

At least not yet.

A year ago, it looked as if rising energy costs might not drag the economy into recession as they had before. The climb had been gradual and the inflation-adjusted price of oil was still below record levels. Neither of those comforts now apply.

A barrel of oil cost $68.05 a year ago. On Friday, oil roared to $139 a barrel, news that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down nearly 400 points. "Oil is the issue," Dhawan said.