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U.S. retail sales surge in May

Xinhua, June 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. consumers increased their spending on auto, clothing and gasoline in May, as improving labor market beefed up consumer confidence, the latest figures released by the Commerce Department showed on Thursday.

Retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2 percent, the Commerce Department said. Excluding volatile categories such as autos and gasoline, sales increased 1 percent, higher than the 0.1 percent increase in April.

Sales shot up 2.7 percent over the past 12 months.

American consumers cut back their expenditures at health care products while increased their spending at gasoline which shot up 3.7 percent from a month earlier.

Retail sales account for about one-third of consumer spending, the main engine of the economic activity. It increased merely 1.8 percent in the first quarter, as consumers remained cautious. Endite