U.S. economy added 57,000 jobs in June, less than expected; unemployment rate at 4.2%

The U.S. economy saw job creation cool sharply heading into the summer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.

Nonfarm payrolls for June increased by a seasonally adjusted 57,000 for the month, slower than the downwardly revised 129,000 added in May and worse than the 115,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast.

The unemployment rate, however, dropped to 4.2%, and slightly ahead of the 4.1% where it was a year ago. The move lower was largely due to a slump in the labor force participation rate, which dropped 0.3 percentage point to 61.5%.

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