Weak private hiring shows recovery on the ropes

U.S. private employers added fewer workers to their payrolls in July than expected and hiring in June was much weaker than had been thought, a big blow to an already feeble economic recovery. The dismal news on jobs poses a challenge to officials at the Federal Reserve who are debating whether more needs to be done to foster growth, as well as to Democrats hoping to retain their congressional majorities in November elections. The Fed's policy-setting committee meets on Tuesday. "The labor market improvement has slowed to a glacial pace, consistent with third-quarter growth even slower than the second," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington Massachusetts. "It doesn't look like a double-dip, but it looks like very weak growth." Overall non-farm payrolls fell 131,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, the second straight monthly decline as temporary government jobs to conduct the decennial census dropped by 143,000.