WASHINGTON - A third straight month of weak hiring shows the U.S. economy is still struggling three years after the recession officially ended. U.S. employers added just 80,000 jobs in June, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent, the Labor Department said Friday. For the April-June quarter, the economy added an average of 75,000 jobs a month — one-third the pace in the first quarter. And for the first six months of 2012, employers added an average of 150,000 jobs a month. That's fewer than the 161,000 average for the first half of 2011. Slow job growth has led consumers to pull back on spending. Many analysts think the economy is growing at a sluggish annual rate of...
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