WASHINGTON — U.S. hiring stumbled in May as employers added just 75,000 jobs, a sign that businesses have become more cautious in the face of weaker global growth, widening trade conflicts and perhaps difficulty finding enough workers.

Last month’s modest job gain followed a much healthier increase of 224,000 in April. The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate remained at a nearly 50-year low of 3.6 percent.

The tepid job growth, along with rising pressures on the economy, makes it more likely that the Federal Reserve will cut rates in the coming months. Bond yields fell after the jobs data was released, signaling expectations for lower Fed rates. Stock investors, too, signaled their approval, with the Dow Jones industrial average up about 250 points by midday.

On Friday, the government also revised down the economy’s hiring gains for March and April by a combined 75,000. In the first five months of the year, job growth has averaged 164,000 a month, a solid pace that is enough to lower the unemployment rate over time. Still, it’s below last year’s pace of 225,000.

The economy is showing signs of sluggishness just as the expansion has reached its 10th anniversary. Next month, it will become the longest period of uninterrupted growth on records dating to 1854. Yet consumers have turned cautious about spending, and companies are scaling back their investment in high-cost machinery and equipment.

Economists cautioned that May’s job figures cover just one month and that broader trends indicate that hiring remains steady. They also noted, though, that May’s weaker hiring data preceded President Donald Trump’s threat last week to impose 5 percent tariffs on Mexico. So the full impact of the trade fights will likely show up in coming months.

“This looks like an economy that is slowing down, which does not mean that we’re necessarily entering a recession,” said Martha Gimbel, director of economic research at the job listings site Indeed. “Coming in the context of tariffs and other economic headwinds makes this number more worrisome.”

The economy expanded at a healthy 3.1 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates that annual growth will slump to 1.5 percent in the April-June quarter.

The deceleration in hiring could mean that some employers are just having trouble finding the workers they need, given that the pool of unemployed is comparatively small. Yet wages should be rising faster than they are as employers compete for workers.