Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his backers seized on a U.S. jobs report Friday showing the weakest hiring in more than five years as evidence the country needs to move away from the economic policies of a Democratic White House.
The New York real estate mogul is making job creation one of his main themes in what is expected to be a close race for the White House in November against likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady.
The monthly Labor Department report showed the U.S. economy added just 38,000 jobs in May, the smallest gain since 2010, opening up a potential chink in the economic armor of the Democratic Party.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell three-tenths of a percentage point to 4.7 percent, the lowest level since November 2007, but that was in part due to people dropping out of the labor force.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, criticized the report early Friday, writing on Twitter: “Terrible jobs report just reported. Only 38,000 jobs added. Bombshell!”
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