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US employment rose by 223,000 in June, while the April and May figures were revised down, official figures show.

May's figure was revised from a rise of 280,000 jobs to a rise of 254,000, according to the US Labor Department.

Despite the slower growth, the jobless rate fell to 5.3% from 5.5%, but that was in part due to people dropping out of the labour force.

Meanwhile, factory orders fell in May by the largest amount in three months, the Commerce Department said.

Employment gains in June were made across a number of sectors, particularly business services, health care, retail, financial activities and transportation, the Labor Department said.

'Rebound'

The labour force shrunk by 432,000 in June, following a sharp increase in May.

This pushed the labour force participation rate - the percentage of the labour force in employment - down to 62.6%, the lowest rate since 1977. And the 5.3% unemployment is now the lowest since April 2008.

"The US economy continues to produce 200,000 plus monthly jobs, confirming that the economy continues to rebound from its disappointing first quarter growth performance," said Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz.

"While this solid but far from great jobs report will raise questions about a September interest rate hike, the Federal Reserve is still likely to hike then absent a big external shock."

'More time'

The average monthly increase in employment over the past 12 months has been 250,000.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said factory orders fell 1% in May from April, when orders contracted by 0.7%.

The figure reflected a big fall in demand for commercial aircraft, the department said. But, even excluding this, factory orders were only up by 0.1%.

The weaker economic data relieves some of the pressure on the Federal Reserve for an early interest rate rise, which many economists had forecast for September.

"If anything, it buys the Fed a little more time before the first rate hike. It puts September a little more in question," said Wilmer Stith, a manager at Wilmington Trust.