A help wanted sign is seen in front of a restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, in the United States. A streak of robust job growth came to a halt in March, signaling that US employers may have grown cautious in a fragile economy. The gain of 88,000 jobs was the smallest in nine months. Even a decline in unemployment to a four-year low of 7.6 percent was nothing to cheer as it fell only because more people stopped looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed.