U.S. employers slowed hiring last month, but still added a solid 139,000 jobs amid uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s trade wars.

Hiring fell from a revised 147,000 in April, the Department of Labor said Friday. The job gains last month were above the 130,000 that economists had forecast.

Health care companies added 62,000 jobs and bars and restaurants 30,000. The federal government shed 22,000 jobs, however, the most since November 2020, as Trump’s job cuts and hiring freeze had an impact. And factories lost 8,000 jobs last month.

Average hourly wages rose 0.4% from April and 3.9% from a year earlier – a bit higher than forecast.

There were a few signs of potential weakening. Labor Department revisions shaved 95,000 jobs from March and April payrolls. The number of people in the U.S. labor force – those working or looking for work – fell by 625,000 last month, biggest drop since December 2023. And the percentage of those who had jobs fell last month to 59.7%, lowest since January 2022.

Trump’s aggressive and unpredictable policies – especially his sweeping taxes on imports – have muddied the outlook for the economy and the job market and raised fears that the American economy could be headed toward recession. But so far the damage hasn’t shown up clearly in government economic data.

“The job market is still standing tall even as some of these headwinds start to blow,” said Daniel Zhao, lead economist at the jobs website Glassdoor. “But ultimately we’re all still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s still much too early for tariff impacts to be a significant drag on the economy.’’

The job market has clearly decelerated. So far this year, American employers have added an average of less than 124,000 a month. That is down 26% from last year, down almost 43% from 2023, and a down whopping 67% compared with 2022.

The modest job gains and steady unemployment rate are likely to keep the Fed on the sidelines for at least the next few months, economists said. The central bank Fed has kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged this year, after cutting it three times last year.

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly to 7.4 million in April — seemingly a good sign. But the same report showed that layoffs ticked up and the number of Americans quitting their jobs fell, a sign they were less confident they could find something better elsewhere.

Surveys by the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, found that both American manufacturing and services businesses were contracting last month.

And the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level in eight months, though jobless claims remain low by historical standards.