The U.S. economy added 51,000 new jobs in September, the fewest since October last year, but the unemployment rate declined to 4.6 percent from 4.7 percent in August, the Labor Department said on Friday.

The new jobs added in September were much less than the 120,000 positions that analysts had predicted.

However, job gains for both July and August turned out to be relatively larger than previously estimated.

Employers added 188,000 jobs in August and 123,000 jobs in July, which was stronger than the 128,000 and 121,000 positions initially reported for the months of August and July respectively, according to revised data released by the department.

Data also showed that workers' average hourly earnings rose by 0.2 percent from August to 16.84 U.S. dollars in September. The gain was slightly below the 0.3-percent increase expected by analysts.

In September, job cuts at factories, retailers and the government, tempered job gains in construction, education, health services and elsewhere, according to analysts.

Source: Xinhua