According to CNN, The US economy added just 49,000 jobs in January as the coronavirus pandemic continued to hamper recovery.
Losses hit workers at retail stores, restaurants, casinos and hotels, in a sign that analysts said underscored the need for further economic relief.
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, down 0.4 percentage points from December.
But the US remains about 10 million jobs short of where it stood in February 2020, before the pandemic hit.
“It’s very clear that our economy is still in trouble,” US President Joe Biden said in a speech on Friday, in which he pressed for approval of a $1.9tn (£1.4tn) spending package. “I see enormous pain in this country. I am going to act fast.”
The weak hiring in January followed job losses in December, which put an end to a streak of job gains that started in May.
The Labor Department said on Friday those falls were deeper than originally estimated, with 227,000 jobs cut instead of 140,000 as previously reported.
Analysts also attributed the fall in the jobless rate to more people giving up on looking work, as roughly 400,00 more people withdrew from the labour force.
