[originaltext] US job growth slackened in April, the federal government repo

US job growth slackened in April, the federal government reported on May 5, 2006, but the hourly wages of ordinary workers jumped, and their pay is finally rising faster than inflation.
    The nation’s employers added only 138,000 jobs, well below the average of 210,000 a month since last November. The unemployment rate, however, held at a low 4.7 percent. The contradictory numbers left economists unsure whether the weaker April job growth was just a hiccup or early evidence of a slowdown in the economy.
    "I am inclined to say that the weak April report is noise in the numbers," said economist Ian Shepherdson, "but I’m not certain. We may be getting an early, ambiguous signal that the economy is weakening. Turning points sometimes start this way."
    Wall Street saw in the April jobs report a justification for policy makers at the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates after doing so one more time at their next meeting, on Tuesday. Reflecting this sentiment, the Dow Jones industrial average soared.
    The Dow closed at 11,577.74, up 138.88 points for the day. That was its highest level since January 2000, the month in which the bubble market of the late 1990’s finally ended, peaking at 11,722.98. Some interest rates fell yesterday for the same reason that stock prices rose.
    "There is still a substantial minority on Wall Street who say there is a reasonable chance that the Fed will raise rates in June," Mr. Shepherdson said, "but stock market investors focused on what the increased employment numbers suggest."