Hiring slows but unemployment hits low

WASHINGTON — The U.S. jobs report for March delivered a mixed message Friday as hiring fell to its weakest pace in nearly a year. Yet at the same time, the unemployment rate reached the lowest level in nearly a decade.

Employers added 98,000 jobs, the Labor Department said. That was barely half the previous month’s gain and a potential sign of weakening growth.

But economists downplayed the drop, attributing much of it to a snowstorm that hit the Midwest and Northeast just as the government was compiling its hiring data.

The steady job market has been a pillar of a resilient U.S. economy, and most analysts expect hiring to return to a pace closer to 178,000, the average monthly job gain for the past three months and close to the monthly average for 2016.

Most economists had predicted a drop-off in hiring in March after robust gains in January and February, but the drop was worse than projected.

Many said they regarded the tepid figure as likely just a blip.

“It’s very premature to conclude that there’s been an interruption of what has been fantastic momentum in the labor market,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust.

The unemployment rate declined last month to 4.5 percent, the lowest rate since May 2007, from 4.7 percent in February. The rate fell because nearly a half-million more Americans reported finding jobs, the government said.

“Within the disappointing 98,000 net new jobs added, there seems to be a lot more going on beneath the surface, and what is going beneath the surface is mostly good,” said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo.

The government also revised down the job growth for January and February by a combined 38,000. And it reported that average hourly earnings rose 0.2 percent in March from February and have increased 2.7 percent over the past 12 months.

Construction companies added just 6,000 jobs in March, the fewest in seven months. Retailers, suffering from the shift to online shopping, slashed 30,000 jobs.