U.S. Unemployment Drops Below 5%

U.S. employers eased up on their brisk pace of hiring at the end of 2015, adding 151,000 new jobs in January and pushing the unemployment rate down to 4.9 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released early Friday. While analysts had expected growth of 185,000, the report may still comfort economists worried about the U.S. economy after a month of global turmoil in the financial markets. It was also the first time the jobless rate has been below 5 percent since February 2008.