WASHINGTON — Employers in May added the fewest jobs in eight months, and the unemployment rate inched up to 9.1 percent.

The weakening job market raised concerns about an economy hampered by high gas prices and the effects of natural disasters here and abroad.

The key question is whether the meager 54,000 jobs added last month mark a temporary setback or are evidence of a more chronic problem. That total is far lower than the previous three months’ average of 220,000 new jobs per month.

Private companies hired only 83,000 new workers in May — the fewest in nearly a year.

“It’s hard to tell on one month of numbers,” said William Even, a Miami University economics professor. “If we get two months of bad numbers, then I think there will be more cause for concern.”

George Zeller, a Cleveland-based economic analyst, said the economy will struggle to sustain job growth until major weaknesses in the economy, including the continued decline in the housing market, are addressed.

“Everyone seems to have forgotten that that’s what caused this mess in the first place,” Zeller said. “We still have this gigantic inventory of unsold homes, and that’s a drag on the economy because that’s how we’ve been financing growth for the last several years.”

In previous recessions, pent-up demand for houses led economic recoveries in which homeowners used the equity in their homes to buy goods and services from companies who were forced to step up hiring to keep up with demand.

Today, more than a third of all homeowners are “underwater” or have negative equity in their homes, and homeownership is near all-time lows.

The anemic pace of job creation poses a challenge to President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects next year. The Conference Board, a business research group, predicts that the unemployment rate will be 8.5 percent by the end of next year. That would mean Obama would face re-election with a higher unemployment rate than any other post-war president has.

Yet there’s little appetite on Capitol Hill for additional stimulus spending. And the Federal Reserve plans to wrap up its most recent effort to pump money into the economy at the end of this month.

White House economist Austan Goolsbee said the burden is now on the private sector to create jobs, as the days of a government-led recovery are nearing an end.

“You’ve seen corporate profits high,” he said. “It’s now time to get that translated ... into the adding of jobs, building of factories and buying of equipment here at home.”

The jobs report followed a string of sluggish economic data in the past month that suggest the economy is growing more slowly.

The manufacturing sector, a key driver of the recovery, grew at its slowest pace in 20 months in May. Home prices in big metro areas have reached their lowest level since 2002.

Higher gas prices have left less money for consumers to spend on other purchases. And average wages aren’t even keeping up with inflation.

As a result, consumer spending, which fuels about 70 percent of the economy, is growing sluggishly.

Companies that depend on consumer spending shed jobs last month. Retailers cut 8,500 positions, after adding 64,000 in April.

Leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants and hotels, cut 6,000 jobs. That came after they added an average of 43,000 in the previous three months.

Among the deepest job cuts were in local governments, which cut 28,000 jobs last month, the most since November. Nearly 18,000 of those jobs were in education. Cities and counties have cut jobs for 22 straight months and have shed 446,000 positions since September 2008.

The Dow Jones industrial average, which hit a three-year high above 12,800 on April 29, lost another 97 points, to close at 12,151 on Friday.

Staff Writer Randy Tucker contributed to this report.