US hiring stalls amid an increasingly erratic economy

WASHINGTON — The American job market, a pillar of U.S. economic strength since the COVID-19 pandemic, is crumbling.

Uncertain about where things are headed under President Donald Trump's economic policies , companies grew increasingly reluctant to hire, leaving agonized jobseekers unable to find work and weighing on consumers who account for 70% of all U.S. economic activity. Their spending was the engine behind the world's biggest economy since the pandemic disruptions of 2020.

The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — added just 22,000 jobs last month, down from 79,000 in July and well below the 80,000 economists expected.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% last month, also worse than expected and the highest sinc