By Courtney Schlisserman June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Service industries in the U.S. expanded in May for a fifth straight month, showing the recovery is broadening and generating jobs. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of non- manufacturing businesses, which makes up almost 90 percent of the economy, held at 55.4 for a third month. Readings above 50 signal expansion. The group’s employment gauge climbed to the highest level since the recession began in December 2007. Companies increased staffs by almost half a million workers through April, leading to gains in incomes and spending that will help sustain the economic rebound after government support wanes. Target Corp. and Dow Chemical Co. are among those seeing a pickup in sales that indicates confidence is growing even as the European debt crisis roils financial markets. “Services remain in rebound,” Maxwell Clarke, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal Inc. in New York, said before the report. “Now that you’ve got the ball rolling for services, it’s going to take a lot more than a hiccup of concerns to derail it.” Economists forecast the index would rise to 55.6, according to the median of 76 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 53.9 to 57. To contact the reporter on this story: Courtney Schlisserman at cschlisserma@bloomberg.net

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