The U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May, the government said in a monthly report that showed a slowdown from the prior month but stronger growth than expected.

The increase came in lower than the 177,000 jobs added in April. Yet it beat forecasts of about 125,000, and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.2%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said sectors such as health care and leisure and hospitality added jobs while the federal government “continued to lose jobs” as President Trump and his team slash the government workforce.

The monthly jobs report is a closely watched metric but taking on outsized importance as Mr. Trump pursues an aggressive economic agenda of tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation.

His tariff plan has sparked concerns of an economic slowdown due to higher costs in the supply chain. Yet the trade policies are in flux, and doomsday predictions haven’t come true.

Stock futures jumped because the jobs report was more robust than anticipated.

“Great job numbers, stock market up big! At the same time, billions pouring in from tariffs!!!” Mr. Trump wrote Friday in capital letters on Truth Social. 

Yet Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, said the slowdown in the jobs report was a worrying sign. He attributed it to Mr. Trump’s policies and said the GOP’s proposed tax legislation would make it worse.

“It’s clear the job market is slowing amid all the economic chaos Trump is creating, and the worst thing he and Republicans could do right now is shred the safety net and spook markets further by adding trillions to the national debt,” said Mr. Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. “Trump was handed the strongest economy in the world, and without anybody around him who can control his worst impulses, he’s tearing it down.”

Others said the economy was in a tenuous position.

“At this pace of job growth, unemployment will continue to push higher, and this, despite weaker labor force participation,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote on X. “None of this signals recession, but it does signal the job market and economy are increasingly fragile as the fallout from the global trade war intensifies.”

The May number is likely not the final word. The government said the March and April reports were revised downward by a combined 95,000 jobs.

Those revisions, combined with uncertainty around Mr. Trump’s policies, might cause the Fed Reserve to be reluctant to cut interest rates. Mr. Trump says Fed Chairman Jerome Powell should move now and cut rates by a full point.

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.