
 
 
 
 The Labor Department announced that the economy produced 160,000 new jobs in April, much below market expectations, while the nation’s unemployment rate stayed at 5%. For the past three months, employers have now added an average of 200,000 new positions. 
 
 Hourly earnings, meanwhile, showed signs of life and grew 2.5% over the past 12 months, while the labor force participation rate decreased to 62.8%. 
 
 Late last month, the government reported that the economy grew at a tepid annual rate of 0.5% in the first three months of the year, raising fears that the seven-year-old economic expansion may be nearing an end. 
 
 Today’s number comes while the economy is at something of a crossroads. 
 
 Crude oil prices, for instance, hung below $35 a barrel in the first few months of 2016, thanks to fears over slowing Chinese growth, and economic turmoil around the world. Over the past two months, though, investors have piled back into the commodity, pushing prices up $10 a barrel, as fears over a global recession ebb and optimism comes back in vogue. 
 
 The stock market has had similar arc so far this year. After dropping more than 5% in January, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has rebounded nearly 8% over the past three months. 
 
 Not only are private sector jobs consistently growing, but consumers are becoming more confident. Long-term unemployment is coming down, more people feel confident enough to quit their jobs and initial jobless claims recently hit a 43-year low. More people believe jobs are “plentiful” than “hard to get” – the so-called labor differential – for the first time since the end of the recession. And wage growth was practically buoyant by post-recession standards. 
 
 The bond market, though, is less sanguine. The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds have dropped from more than 2% to start the year to 1.8% now. Bond rates move opposite to fixed income prices. That means investors are buying more government debt, which are more desirable in times of stagnation. 
 
 Other metrics cast a dim lit on the economy, too. While up slightly recently, persistently low inflation has also muted growth expectations, and the economy as a whole barely budged in the first three months of 2016. 
 
 All of the contradictory data has caused the Federal Reserve to hold off raising rates after doing so for the first time in nearly a decade last December. The FOMC, after its most recent meeting in April, acknowledged the unevenness. “[L]abor market conditions have improved further even as growth in economic activity appears to have slowed,” the FOMC said in a statement. “Growth in household spending has moderated, although households’ real income has risen at a solid rate and consumer sentiment remains high.” 
 
 There will be another jobs report before the next Fed meeting in June. If it is as muddled as the past few have been, the Fed’s life will be that much more complicated. ||||| ENLARGE Photo: Bloomberg News 
 
 It’s Jobs Friday. For one ever-so-brief moment, the interests of Wall Street, Washington and Main Street were all aligned on the same thing: jobs. 
 
 Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 160,000 in April, the Labor Department said. It was the weakest gain since September. The unemployment rate, obtained from a separate survey of U.S. households, held steady last month at 5%. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted 205,000 jobs added and expected the 5% figure. 
 
 Here at MoneyBeat HQ, we crunched the numbers, tracked the markets and compiled the commentary as it came in.
– US employers pulled back on hiring in April after a streak of solid monthly gains, adding 160,000 jobs, the fewest in seven months, the AP reports. The unemployment rate remained at a low of 5%, roughly the same level it has been since the fall. The job gain was down from the average increase of 200,000 over the past three months, which is the softest three-month pace since October. The slowdown may raise concerns that weak US economic growth has discouraged some employers from hiring. The economy's growth has slumped to a sluggish 1% annual rate since October. Meanwhile, the labor participation rate went down to 62.8%, per Money. But there was good news on the wage gains front: Average hourly pay rose 2.5% from a year earlier—a "hot number," the Wall Street Journal notes, and above the sluggish 2% pace that has been typical for the past six years. Money reports that consumer confidence in the jobs that are out there is rising, with more people perceiving that jobs are "plentiful" rather than "hard to get" for the first time since the Great Recession ended. The Journal notes that April's jobs report will only serve to keep the Fed in "standby mode" as it ponders whether to boost the short-term interest rate. Officials had suggested that such a rate increase in June may have been in the cards if the economy picked up steam—but now it will likely take better news on consumption, hiring, and inflation for the rate increase to happen.