The U.S. job market slowed in April in response to persistently high interest rates. The economy added 175,000 jobs last month, which was significantly fewer than the 233,000 economists had predicted.
"Certainly a cooler jobs report than we've seen,'' Michael Pugliese, senior economist at Wells Fargo, told the Associated Press. "But it's not like it was disastrous: 175,000 is still pretty strong, and unemployment below 4% is still pretty healthy.''
The slower-than-expected job growth was welcome news to the Federal Reserve, which has kept interest rates at a two-decade high to fight inflation. Hourly wages rose 0.2% from March to April and 3.9% from a year earlier, which was the smallest annual gain since June 2021.
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