Hiring Held Steady in June as Employers Added 147,000 Jobs

American employers continued hiring at a steady clip in June, brushing aside concerns about the economy to notch another month of solid job creation.

Payrolls grew by 147,000, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.1 percent.

The healthy hiring reaffirmed that the economy was maintaining momentum despite economic headwinds, including President Trump’s unpredictable tariff policy, global conflict, an immigration crackdown and high interest rates.

“Businesses are pretty much business as usual,” said Beth Ann Bovino, the chief economist at U.S. Bank. They may not be expanding, she added, but they still have to “keep the doors open day to day, and that means they’ve got to have their workers in place.”

Reaffirming the labor market’s durability, job gains in April and May were revised upward by a collective 16,000.

But there were also some signs of strain in the labor market. Many companies in the private sector appear to be in a holding pattern as they assess the effects of Mr. Trump’s economic policies, geopolitical conflicts and other uncertainties. Many industries continued to add jobs, but at a very low level, suggesting they have largely postponed any hiring plans.

And although job creation exceeded expectations for the month, much of the hiring was concentrated in the same handful of industries — health care, leisure and hospitality and government — that have been propping up the economy for months. Those sectors combined accounted for nearly 90 percent of the total net job gains.

The labor force also shrank as the pool of workers seeking employment dropped. The number of people who have been out of a job for more than six months rose, suggesting it is taking longer for those seeking work to find it.

“Very clearly, the labor market is resilient,” said Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “But I think that it’s maybe less sturdy than it appears.”

Still, the report reinforced the Federal Reserve’s wait-and-see approach to cutting interest rates despite a prolonged pressure campaign from Mr. Trump. On Wednesday, the president continued his attacks on Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, calling on him to “resign immediately.”

An open question now is how much longer the labor market can hold on. Economists anticipate that Mr. Trump’s policies will begin to have a more meaningful effect on businesses in the coming months as tariffs hit their bottom lines and immigration slows. High interest rates and cost increases resulting from Mr. Trump’s trade war are weighing on companies as well as consumers, who are being stretched thin. When adjusted for inflation, personal spending fell 0.3 percent in May.

Some corners of the economy are already feeling the effects. Federal government employment, which has been in Mr. Trump’s cross hairs, dropped in June by 7,000 jobs and is down 69,000 for the year even as state and local governments have added jobs.

Manufacturing, which has been buffeted by the trade war, also shed 7,000 jobs last month.