WASHINGTON, May 4: US employers added 88,000 jobs in April, the government said on Friday, as employment growth slowed to its weakest reading since November 2004.

The unemployment rate ticked up a notch to 4.5 per cent, in line with most analysts’ forecasts, from 4.4 per cent a month earlier, the Labour Department said.

The slowdown in non-farm payroll hiring, seen as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, was worse than expected. Most analysts had expected employers to add at least 100,000 new positions last month.

“It was a generally weaker report with some underlying weakness,” said Ian Morris, chief US economist at HSBC North America in New York.

Additionally, the job picture for recent months was also downgraded as the government revised lower its estimate for March job growth to show 177,000 new jobs were created instead of 180,000 as initally forecast—AFP