(TNND) — American employers added more jobs to their payrolls last month than expected, but fewer jobs were added in the previous two months than originally reported.

The monthly jobs report from the Labor Department showed 139,000 added in May, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.2% for the third straight month.

The unemployment rate has hovered between 4% and 4.2% for a year now.

The results beat the median forecast of 125,000 new jobs.

But the Labor Department revised March and April jobs down by a combined 95,000 jobs.

The Labor Department originally reported 177,000 new jobs in April but said Friday that only 147,000 were added.

Labor economist Aaron Sojourner noted that the economy added 1.73 million jobs over the last 12 months, which he said was “moderate” and below all recent years except 2020.

But he also said jobs a growing at a stable rate.

Sojourner said the labor market remains remarkably strong and stable, but he warned that future months could turn worse if employers lose faith in profit opportunities ahead.

The employment-to-population ratio declined, as did the labor force participation rate, said Sojourner, who works with the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

“Baby Boomer aging puts downward pressure on these but not great,” he said via a social media post.

Core labor market strength, omitting people on the fringes of work, remained high, he said. Working-age folks are already working.

Earlier this week, another Labor Department report showed near-record-high job security, with the firing rate in April at just 1.1%.

But the hiring rate, 3.5%, remained in a range that is the lowest in over a decade.

It's a good time to have a job and a bad time to be looking for one.

“Employers are just kind of frozen in place,” Sojourner told The National News Desk on Tuesday. “They're not firing. They're not hiring. They're just hanging on to what they have and who they know.”

And Sojourner said a lot of that is due to uncertainty in the economic and policy environment.

“Huge policy uncertainty risks steering our soft landing into a stagflationary ditch,” Sojourner said in his breakdown of the May jobs report on Bluesky.

Friday’s jobs report showed average hourly wages increased 3.9% over the last year to May.

Inflation is a bit over 2%.

Average workweek hours for private-sector employees held steady at 34.3 hours. Sojourner said that’s normal.

Hours among those who usually work full time remained a bit depressed relative to the pre-pandemic norm, ticking down in May.

“Full time isn't as full as it used to be,” Sojourner said.