The US employment rate ticked lower last month, and at 4.3% fell to its lowest level since May 2001. But that’s pretty much where the good news ends. Job growth was just 138,000 versus Wall Street expectations of 180,000, and the prior two months were revised down a net 66,000 jobs. (Though it seems the calendar played a role here. The payroll survey week may have been a bit too early to capture students going to work at summer jobs.)

Moreover, the jobless rate fell “for all the wrong reasons,” notes Capital Economics. The decline was driven by the labor force participation rate falling 0.2 percentage point to 62.7%. The employment rate fell by the same amount.

What about paychecks? This from JPMorgan: “The dreary realities on labor supply have been reasserting themselves in recent months. On wages, the gradual 2015-2016 acceleration has stalled so far this year; average hourly earnings rose a modest 0.2% last month and the year-ago increase was unchanged at 2.5%.” So as Deutsche Bank argues, perhaps 2.5% wage growth is the news 3%, especially given weak productivity growth.

Of course given the age of the current expansion, it’s easy to seize on any bit of bad news as a recession warning or at least a slown from the current slow pace of economic growth. Here is IHS Markit on that:

While disappointing, the May employment gains are not a warning sign of another “soft patch”. First, other data on the jobs market (e.g. weekly unemployment claims and the PMIs by IHS Markit) signal continued strength. Second, as the economy gets (very) close to full employment companies are having a difficult time finding workers—the time needed to fill a job is the longest since 2000. Third, companies may be taking a more cautious approach to hiring, not because they are worried about sales, but because they are trying to assess whether the President and Congress will be successful in passing pro-growth policies.