The government reported on Friday that employers added just 38,000 workers in May, a troubling sign that the economic recovery may have stalled, at least temporarily, and a sharp slowdown in hiring that is expected to push back a decision by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

Despite the anemic job gains, the official unemployment rate, which is based on a separate survey of households, fell to its lowest point in nearly a decade, 4.7 percent from 5 percent in April. But the decline was primarily a result of Americans dropping out of the labor force rather than finding new jobs.

“Boy, this is ugly,” said Diane Swonk, an independent economist in Chicago. “The losses were deeper and more broad-based than we expected, and with the downward revision to previous months, it puts the Fed back on pause.”

“The only good news is that wages held,” Ms. Swonk said. Average hourly earnings were up again, 0.2 percent for the month, for a gain of 2.5 percent for the year, continuing to rise at a faster pace than in recent years.

The weakness in May’s job totals were somewhat exaggerated because they reflected the Labor Department classification of more than 35,000 striking Verizon workers as unemployed. With those employees now back on the job, the missing strikers should be added back in next month’s report.

While Friday’s report is only a snapshot of the economy and the jobs engine could rev up again, it has sputtered this spring, with the Labor Department shrinking its estimate of March and April’s employment totals by 59,000 since the initial reports. The average monthly gain for the last three months was just 116,000 jobs.