The pace of US job creation slumped sharply in June, the US government reported this afternoon.
The Labor Department said only 112,000 jobs were created last month, far fewer than the 250,000 that Wall Street analysts had anticipated. April and May figures were also revised down, to 324,000 and 235,000 respectively, from 346,000 and 248.000.
The unemployment rate was unchanged, as expected, at 5.6%.
June still represented a 10th straight month of job growth which has added about 1.5 million workers to payrolls.
In a sign of broader weakness, the average work week eased to 33.6 hours in June from 33.8 in May, the shortest since December.
