The U.S. economy added a modest 136,000 jobs in September, in what is likely to be interpreted as further evidence that the country is headed for a slowdown.
The pace is well-below average monthly growth last year, though the unemployment rate fell to a 50-year-low of 3.5 percent.
Manufacturing has already entered a decline and consumer spending is also appearing to soften, after more than a year of strength. The new report, issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that the economy lost 2,000 manufacturing jobs in September.
“It’s kind of a mixed picture,” said Douglas Kruse,an economist at Rutgers University and a former White House adviser under President Obama. “The job growth was less than what Wall Street and economists were expecting, but the drop in the unemployment rate was unexpected.”
