U.S. employers hired far fewer workers in March than in previous months, keeping the door open for the Federal Reserve to provide more monetary support for a still sluggish economy, Reuters reported. The report was seized upon by Republicans hoping to make the weak economy the centerpiece of their campaign for November's presidential and congressional elections. Even as the unemployment rate fell to a three-year low of 8.2 percent, job growth slowed to 120,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, the smallest increase since October. That was less than half the average monthly increase in the prior three months and way below the lowest estimate in a Reuters survey. Economists had expected an increase of 203,000 and the jobless rate to hold at 8.3 percent. The numbers likely reflected the fading boost from unseasonably warm winter weather and brought the job market, which had been showing surprising strength since December, more in line with signs of a broader slowdown in the overall economy. It also backed the caution expressed by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week about whether the labor market could sustain gains above the 200,000 mark when economic growth is tracking a sub-par rate. The data raises the chances of the U.S. central bank launching a third bond buying program or quantitative easing.
