WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. labor market is still reliably cranking out jobs each month, enough to give Americans the confidence and paychecks to keep spending and sustaining the economy. Yet the pace of hiring has lost momentum over the past several months, evidence that employers have become more cautious. September likely brought more of the same. The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that employers added a decent but hardly spectacular 140,000 jobs last month, roughly matching August’s 142,000 gain. The economy’s resilience has come as a relief. Economists had expected that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign to subdue inflation — it jacked up interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023 — would cause a recession. It didn’t.
