U.S. job growth slowed sharply in July, with employers adding 73,000 positions, well below economists’ estimates of about 110,000, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2% from 4.1% in June, reinforcing signals that momentum in the labor market is fading. The agency also issued unusually large revisions to earlier data, cutting May’s payroll gain to 19,000 from 144,000 and slashing June’s to 14,000 from 147,000. The combined 258,000 downward adjustment is the biggest two-month revision since the depths of the pandemic in 2020 and leaves hiring in late spring virtually flat. Private employers added 83,000 jobs in July while manufacturing payrolls fell by 11,000. Healthcare accounted for roughly three-quarters of last month’s growth. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% from June and 3.9% from a year earlier, and the labor-force participation rate slipped to 62.2%. The softer-than-expected figures, together with the hefty revisions, prompted traders to raise the probability of a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut at the September policy meeting to nearly 70%. Economists said the data point to a cooling labor market that could give policymakers more leeway to ease monetary settings later this year.