The U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 5.6% in June for a third straight month as more Americans resumed their job searches with mixed results. U.S. employers added roughly 112,000 new positions, less than half the growth that economists were anticipating.

June’s payroll increase, nonetheless, was the 10th straight month of gains, the Labor Department reported today. In advance of the report, analysts had forecast a rise of at least 250,000 jobs. Payrolls in April and May also were revised down slightly from the big gains previously reported by Labor

The overall, seasonally adjusted civilian unemployment rate has stayed at 5.6% all year, except for March, when it rose to 5.7%. Economists expect the rate to slowly decline throughout the year.

The manufacturing industry cut jobs for the first time since January, trimming payrolls by 11,000 in June. The government cut jobs for a second month in a row, reducing payrolls by 5,000.

The service-producing industry added 122,000 jobs. That included a 39,000 increase in professional and business-services jobs, which include temporary-help jobs. Payrolls in the construction industry were unchanged.

Evidence of a strengthening labor market and the specter of new inflationary pressures prompted the Federal Reserve on Wednesday to raise interest rates for the first time in four years. The quarter-point increase was the first change since the funds rate was cut to a 46-year low of 1% in June 2003.