A lukewarm July jobs report, with employers reporting that they added the fewest new positions since March, is another sign of a sluggish recovery, economists said.
Employers added 162,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell to 7.4 percent, largely because of a shrinking labor force.
?It?s not striking you as something horrible, but it?s not the direction you want to see,? said Elliot Winer, chief economist at Northeast Economic Analysis Group.
Many of the jobs that were added were low-paying, low-productivity jobs in the retail and food-services industries, according to Nigel Gault, co-chief economist of The Parthenon Group.
?We didn?t create a lot of jobs, and we weren?t creating good ones,? Gault said, who added the trend is not new. ?It?s certainly been something evident over the past year.?
More than half of the new jobs added in July were in those sectors. The average workweek and hourly earnings both dropped, as well.
The results leave uncertainty about the short-term decisions of the Federal Reserve Bank. Chairman Ben Bernanke had indicated tapering of the central bank?s $85 billion bond buying program could end in September if the economy continued to improve. The bond buying program has kept interest rates low, and has been a key factor in a resurgent housing market.
?It leaves fed policy up in the air,? Gault said.
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