Federal Reserve officials have signaled they could hold interest rates steady at their next meeting in June, pausing after 10 consecutive rate hikes to assess whether their changes so far are enough to slow the economy and fight the rapid inflation.

Central bankers may continue to steer toward that more patient approach, even after jobs data released on Friday showed strong hiring in May. While employers are still adding workers, other aspects of the report, including a rise in unemployment and a slowdown in wage gains, confused the signal coming from the data.

Investors seemed to think the tricky jobs report might make the Fed’s decision more challenging, but not so much that it was a game changer. financial world pushed up the probability of a rate move this month after the report, based on financial market prices. Even so, they still saw only a one in three chance of a raise.

Fed officials have raised interest rates sharply over the past year and a half, driving them into a range of 5 to 5.25 percent, rising sharply from near zero in early 2022. After all that tightening, policymakers have been gearing up to stop raising rates at every meeting. Pausing will allow your policies more time to run and reduce the risk of policymakers going too far.

Officials want economic growth to slow, because they believe a cooldown is necessary to bring inflation back under control. But at the same time, they don’t want to sink the economy and cause a more painful setback than necessary by overreacting their political reaction.

Several central bankers have said or suggested they could leave rates on hold as soon as they meet on June 13-14, allowing them to gauge how the economy is reacting to both their policy changes and the recent banking turmoil.

Higher interest rates cool the economy by making it more expensive to borrow to buy a house or car, but they take time to work. Companies are phasing out expansion plans and cutting back on hiring as higher borrowing costs take their toll. Ultimately, that should lead to weaker wage growth and a slower economy.

That’s why labor market data is so critical: It’s a referendum on how well policy is working to cool the economy, and it hints at whether inflation is likely to slow. Officials have been concerned that rapid wage growth could prompt companies to keep raising prices rapidly as they try to prevent higher wage costs from eating into profits.

Friday’s numbers offered some evidence that the Fed’s policies are working as expected. The unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent, from 3.4 percent in the previous reading, and wage growth slowed slightly.

However, employers added 339,000 jobs in May, much more than economists had expected and a rebound from the previous month. And that was on the heels of several months of rapid job gains.

The conflicting evidence, of softening on the one hand and resilience on the other, was due in part to the fact that the jobs report is made up of two different surveys, each sending a different signal in May. The labor market split screen could make the Fed’s task of figuring out how to set policy more challenging.

“They have a tough conversation ahead of them in June,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, rates strategist at TD Securities.

But abnormally strong hiring alone may not be enough to deter Fed officials who want to pause. The other details in the report, from hours worked to the unemployment rate, confirmed that the economy is cooling off, said Julia Coronado, founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives.

The big payroll gain “is the anomaly here,” he said. “Everything else speaks of a cooling in the labor market.”

Some Fed officials have previously said they favor delaying a June rate hike. Patrick T. Harker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said this week that he was “definitely in the camp of thinking about skipping any raises at this meeting.”

And in a sign that a pause may be imminent, a key official stressed this week that calling off a rate-hike meeting would not mean the Federal Reserve is done raising interest rates entirely.

“The decision to hold our policy rate constant at an upcoming meeting should not be interpreted as saying that we have reached the maximum rate for this cycle,” said Philip Jefferson, a Fed governor chosen by President Biden to be vice president of the institution. said in a speech On Wednesday.

“Indeed, omitting a rate increase at a future meeting would allow the committee to see more data before making decisions about the scope of further policy reaffirmation,” Mr. Jefferson added. The Fed vice chair is traditionally an important communicator for the Fed, conveying how central officials think about the policy path forward.

Fed policymakers will receive additional information on the economy before they must decide on policy: the consumer price index inflation report is ready for publication The day that their June meeting begins. Given that, and the mixed messages in the jobs report, they can avoid revising their plans too sharply.

“It’s just a weird and crazy mix,” Ms. Coronado said of the employment numbers.