Job seeker Bradford Antt, 28, right, reviews papers at the HireLive management and sales job fair in San Diego. Unemployment edged up to 9.1% in May.

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Reporting from Washington—

The nation's job market took a turn for the worse last month as employers abruptly curbed their hiring and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.1%, the Labor Department said Friday.

The disappointing report provided the latest and strongest evidence of a sputtering economic recovery. In recent days, various data have pointed to a slowdown in manufacturing and consumer spending, as well as persistent weakness in the depressed housing market.

Employers in May added just 54,000 to their payrolls, less than half of what's needed just to keep pace with the expanding working-age population. The puny job growth came after three straight months of solid payroll increases that averaged 220,000 a month.

And the jobless rate, after steadily declining during the winter, rose for the second month in a row. Unemployment was 9% in April and 9.6% in May of last year.

"No one knows on one month's data … but this one is a real sign of fragility and danger," said Ron Blackwell, chief economist at the AFL-CIO. "Basically, this is what economic stagnation feels like."

Blackwell and some other analysts and Democratic leaders in Washington immediately called for more government action to spur job growth, such as stronger support for infrastructure building and further monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve. The Fed's $600-billion bond-buying program, aimed at holding down long-term interest rates, is set to expire at the end of this month.

But Friday's report seemed only to harden partisan positions over budget deficits and other economic policies to energize the nation's recovery from the deep recession, which technically came to an end two years ago this month.

Republican leaders laid the blame of the weak economic and job growth to flawed Obama administration policies, insisting Friday that instead of more government spending, tax cuts and reduced regulations are the way to go.

"One look at the jobs report should be enough to show theWhite House it's time to get serious about cutting spending and dealing with our ailing economy," said House SpeakerJohn Boehner (R-Ohio) at a GOP news conference Friday morning.

President Obama on Friday morning headed to Toledo, Ohio, where he was expected to defend his economic policies and tour the Chrysler auto plant there. The federal government's bailout of Chrysler and General Motors during the recession was highly controversial, but the domestic auto industry has since regained its footing. Nonetheless, Friday's jobs report provided no boost for Obama as employment in the U.S. car-manufacturing industry fell by 3,400 over last month.

Manufacturing, which had been leading the recovery, on the whole lost 5,000 jobs in May, reversing months of healthy gains that, until last month, totaled 243,000 since December 2009.

Apart from healthcare and some professional services, notably accounting and computer systems work, there was little or no net job gain in other service-producing sectors of the economy. And local government continued to be a drag on the economy, shedding 28,000 jobs, most of them at schools.

There were indications that some of the weakness in the hiring was due to temporary factors.

Supply-chain disruptions stemming from Japan's earthquakeand tsunami in March most likely contributed to the loss in auto-manufacturing employment last month. Higher fuel prices, although easing a bit in recent weeks, also may have played a role in restraining hiring by retailers and restaurants, among other businesses.