Employers in the United States added 187,000 workers to their payrolls in July, the Department of Labor said Friday, less than expected.
The unemployment rate, however, fell to 3.5 percent.
In the preliminary report for June, the Labor Department had said that the economy added 209,000 jobs and the unemployment rate was 3.6 percent. The June jobs number was revised down to 185,000 on Friday.
Average hourly wages roe 0.4 percent for the month, slightly more than expected. Compared with a year ago, average hourly wages are up 4.4 percent.
Somewhat offsetting this, however, the average hours worked fell to 34.3 hours. This is the lowest since 2020. Hours worked is often considered a leading indicator of demand for labor, with declining hours indicating a softening of the labor market.
The labor force participation rate was unchanged at 62.6 percent.
Economists had forecast the economy would add around 200,000 jobs, with the range of forecasts in the Econoday survey running from 150,000 to 300,000. The wide range suggests a lot of uncertainty about the strength of the labor market.
Earlier this week, the Labor Department said that job listings came in at 9.6 million on the last day in June, just where they were in the downwardly revised figure for the end of May. Jobless claims, which are a proxy for layoffs, rose slightly last week to 227,000 from 221,000 in the prior week, figures low enough to suggest that demand for labor remains very high.
Until last month, when the jobs figure came in lower than expected, the monthly jobs numbers were repeatedly coming in higher than expected. The labor market has shown a surprising resilience in the face of rapid interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
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