The nation’s economy added 165,000 new jobs in April while the jobless rate dropped to 7.5% from March's 7.6%, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The 165,000 new April jobs are about twice the number of jobs created in March and mark 37 straight months of positive job growth. But economists say the growth rate is too slow to fuel a healthy jobs recovery.

The slow job growth reiterates the need for Congress to repeal the sequester and its across-the-board cuts that will cost more than 750,000 jobs this year alone and are derailing the economic recovery. The sequester and other so-called austerity measures pushed by congressional Republicans will only strangle a recovery that was fueled by economic stimulus. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

Misguided austerity has hurt our economy, kept unemployment high, and undermined wages, and we urgently need to change course. But the price for correcting this mistake should not be cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits, or other harmful cuts that would further damage the economy. Working people were not responsible for this mistaken policy, and they should not have to pay the price.

Read his full statement.

The sequester’s impact also should serve as warning against other austerity proposals being floated, including a so-called “grand bargain”—Republican code for lower tax rates for rich people—paid for by benefit cuts for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Says Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP):

The only way to build a strong and sustainable economy is to rev up the nation’s job creation engine, but the sequester is causing it to stall. Anyone in Congress who cares about keeping our economy moving in a positive direction should make repeal of the sequester sledgehammer an immediate priority.

The number of long-term unemployed (those who are jobless for 27 weeks or more) dropped slightly from 4.56 million and 39.6% of the unemployed to 4.4 million, accounting 37.4% of the jobless.

The unemployment rate for adult women dropped to 6.7% from 7%, while the rate for adult men (7.1%), teenagers (24.1%), whites (6.7%), African Americans (13.2%), Latinos (9%) and Asians (5.1%) showed little or no change.

The biggest job gains were in professional and business services (73,000), leisure and hospitality (38,000), retail (29,000) and health care (19,000).

Employment in other major industries, including mining, manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, state government and local government, showed little change from March.