New hiring slowed significantly in April as employers added just 138,000 people to their payrolls, the slowest pace of job growth in six months. The overall unemployment rate held steady at 4.7 percent. The weakness in April's payrolls mostly reflected job losses in retailing; however, manufacturers actually added the most number of jobs in nearly two years.
See "Payrolls Grow Smallest Amount Since October", Associated Press, The New York Times, May 4, 2006