Job Gains Slow Amid U.S. Unemployment at Four-Year Low

The U.S. job-creation engine sputtered in March as employers hired fewer workers than forecast and a shrinking labor force helped push the unemployment rate down to the lowest in four years.

Payrolls grew by 88,000, the smallest gain in nine months and less than the most-pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey, after a revised 268,000 February increase, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. The jobless rate fell to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent.