Like motorists in a work zone, the nation's employers eased off the accelerator last month, adding just 75,000 workers to their payrolls -- the weakest showing since October when businesses were reeling from the devastating hurricanes along the Gulf.

Economists said the May report, released by the Labor Department yesterday, signaled a slowdown in the economy and raised the odds that the Federal Reserve would pause this month in its two-year campaign of interest rate hikes aimed at battling inflation.

At the same time, the department said the unemployment rate dipped from 4.7 percent to 4.6 percent last month, the lowest rate in almost five years. Because the numbers are rounded, the government called the rate essentially unchanged. In May a year ago, the jobless rate was 5.1 percent.

Although economists pointed to the unemployment rate as the one bright spot in yesterday's report, they generally consider payroll numbers a better barometer for the labor market.

Wall Street spent the day gyrating up and down over the numbers, as cheer over the prospect of the Fed taking a break was dampened by worries over a sudden pullback in the economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average and tech-laden Nasdaq ended the day off a bit, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 and New York Stock Exchange indexes rose.

Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group, called the jobs report "disappointing."

"It was much weaker than certainly any of us would like to see," he said.

Mr. Hoffman noted that workers' wage gains screeched nearly to a halt last month, edging up 0.1 percent vs. a 0.6 percent gain the previous month.

"Workers were really squeezed as the prices on things they buy, especially gasoline, raced ahead," he said. "That definitely put a crimp in everyone's wallet."

The department also revised downward job gains for the previous two months, to 126,000 in April and 175,000 in March, compared with earlier estimates of 138,000 and 200,000.

The 75,000 addition to payrolls in May fell far short of the 170,000 to 180,000 gain economists had been expecting.

While job gains in May were "clearly quite soft," the labor market isn't as bad off as one month's numbers may indicate, said Richard DeKaser, chief economist at National City Corp. in Cleveland.

"If we look at the trend over the past six months, we're growing jobs at a rate of about 145,000 per month. That's exactly where you want to be in terms of a sustainable rate of growth," Mr. DeKaser said.

Still, he said, the slowdown takes the pressure off Fed policymakers to raise short-term rates at their meeting the end of this month. The latest jobs report cut the chances of a rate hike to 45 percent, down from a 70 percent likelihood before the numbers came out, Mr. DeKaser said.

With consumer prices creeping higher in recent months, the Fed's decision on whether to back off will hinge on the latest inflation data due in mid-June, several economists said.

"If inflation is on the high side, that's where the difficult decision comes in," Mr. Hoffman said.

"My best judgment is they will go ahead and raise the rate another quarter-point. If they do, that should be it," at least until the fall, he said.

Not everyone took the jobs report as a sign the economy is in danger of slowing too fast.

The weak payroll numbers "could be a sign that employers are having a difficult time finding qualified workers," said John Challenger, chief executive officer at the Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Planned job cuts, a measure of how companies perceive future business conditions, have fallen to the lowest level since November 2000, he said.

"It is far too soon to bring up the 'R' word," he said.