Employers tapped the brakes on hiring in May, signaling companies are taking a more cautious approach at a time of cooling global growth and trade tensions and adding to other signs of a spring slowdown in the decadelong U.S. economic expansion.
The economy added 75,000 jobs in May, marking the 104th straight month of gains, but also one of the weakest monthly gains since the recession ended, the Labor Department said Friday.
The jobless rate held steady at 3.6%, a half-century low.
The latest employment figures added to other data depicting an economy that is still expanding, but is losing momentum from a faster pace of growth in the first quarter of 2019 and last year.
U.S. Federal Reserve officials signaled this week they are paying close attention to the risks of a sharper-than-expected economic slowdown. The employment report, along with other recent weak data, makes an interest-rate cut possible this summer—if not at their meeting on June 18-19, then possibly later.
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