The US government announced today that employers added just 146,000 jobs in January in an unexpectedly weak report on the labor market.
But a drop in job-seekers pushed the unemployment rate to its lowest level in more than three years.
The gain in non-farm payrolls in January came in below expectations for 190,000 new jobs, but it was enough to return the nation's employment to where it was before the 2001 recession began. It also erased the jobs lost during President George W. Bush's first term.
The slow pace of job creation and the weakness in key sectors such as manufacturing - which lost 25,000 jobs - disappointed economists and sent US Treasury bond prices higher.
The US Labor Department also said it had revised up its measure of jobs created in the year to March 2004. In its annual benchmark revision, the government statisticians said 203,000 more jobs were created in the March 2003-March 2004 period.
The revision was expected and does not change the general outlook for employment. The report showed a few other signs of weakness, including a drop in the length of the work week to just 33.7 hours from 33.8 hours in December.