The U.S. unemployment rate in June fell to 5%, its lowest level in almost four years, the U.S. Labor Department said today.

The U.S. unemployment hasn’t been down to 5% since September 2001, when the economy was hit by the fallout from the 9/11 attacks.

Although U.S. employers added 146,000 new jobs, only about 1,000 people entered the workforce to look for employment. Those factors combined to push the jobless rate down.

Despite the improvement in the unemployment rate, the actual number of jobs created last month was far below Wall Street’s expectations.

Economists had called for job growth of 188,500 new jobs in June, and for the unemployment rate to remain steady at the 5.1% seen in May.

There was some good news in the report, however. U.S. employers created 44,000 more jobs in April and May than the department previously estimated. That raised the monthly average gain for the year to 181,000.