The U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest point since late 2008, but the labor market only added another 162,000 jobs last month.

The government said Friday that the July jobless rate was 7.4 percent, down two-tenths of a percentage point from June. It was the best showing since the 7.3 percent figure recorded in December 2008 in the midst of the country’s steep economic downturn.

Government figures showed that 11.5 million people are unemployed in the U.S., more than a million less than a year ago as the world’s largest economy shows slow, but steady growth.

But the additional July job growth was disappointing, down from the 183,000 figure analysts had projected earlier in the week.

The U.S. had said its economy was adding more than 200,000 jobs a month since the first of the year. But in the new report, the government trimmed earlier job growth estimates, cutting 26,000 jobs from the combined totals for May and June.

The government said jobs were added last month in retail and wholesale trade, restaurants and financial services.  

The government earlier this week said the country’s economic output advanced 1.7 percent in the April - June period, a figure that some analysts say may increase in the latter half of the year. The U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, says the economy is advancing modestly.

The Fed has been buying $85 billion worth of securities each month in an effort to pump more money into the economy and boost hiring. With the national economy showing signs of improvement, the central bank says it may start trimming the asset purchases later this year and end them altogether by mid-2014.

But after meeting two days in Washington this week, policy makers announced they were not yet ready to slow the stimulative measures. [Read More]

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Source: VOA News: Labor