WASHINGTON, DC-The figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday were a disappointment to observers hoping that this spring’s slowdown in the economy was just a blip. For the second month in a row, the economy added a paltry number of jobs--18,000 in June. This, as the unemployment rate rose to 9.2%. “It's hard to find any silver lining in the most recent jobs report,” Scott Homa, research director for Jones Lang LaSalle, tells GlobeSt.com. “Clearly the level of uncertainty in the economy is a huge problem for federal agencies and private sector companies alike.”

Revised figures showed that there was only an increase of 25,000 jobs in May. In April there had been 217,000 jobs added to the rolls, a number that was considerably larger than the current activity, but still not enough to spur growth.

Hand in hand with Friday’s numbers come other signs that the economy and commercial real estate industry are slowing. May’s Architecture Billings Index dropped to 47.2, after falling almost three points in April to 47.6. Also, leasing activity in the Washington, DC area--one of the strongest markets in the nation--was very lackluster in Q2.

Indeed, Homa notes that the long-standing challenges in the labor market across the country are now manifesting in the Washington, DC market, which had previously managed to avoid the brunt of the downturn’s impact. “The benefits to Washington, DC as a result of the stimulus are clearly abating,” he says. “Job gains in the Washington, DC metropolitan area slowed to a virtual standstill in mid-2011, with just 2,100 jobs created in the last 12-months according to the most recent BLS data.”

This would explain the limp leasing demand in the metro DC area during the second quarter, Homa adds. Another negative, he says: the push for austerity in federal spending has extended beyond federal agencies to the contractor community, “a huge driver of the Washington employment base.”