WASHINGTON — The unemployment rate edged down in April and employers cut far fewer jobs than expected, according to a government report yesterday, the latest evidence that the U.S. economy is undergoing a mediocre spell, rather than a disastrous downturn.

The report was hardly rosy — there were 20,000 fewer jobs in April than in March. But the employment numbers, coupled with a reading on the gross domestic product this week and other recent data, have cheered economists. The numbers suggest that the worst scenarios envisioned for the economy this year — of a severe recession — are not coming true.

"The economy is weak, there's no doubt about that," said Eugenio Aleman, a senior economist with Wells Fargo. "But it's not going to collapse."

The Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate fell to 5 percent, from 5.1 percent, as there were 189,000 fewer people who did not have a job but were looking for one. And the 20,000 net job losses seemed like good news, given that economists had forecast huge losses.

Many economists think conditions will improve in the second half of the year, as people start to spend their government stimulus checks, which are being mailed starting this month, and as the effects of Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts take hold.

However, even if the downturn continues not to be terribly deep, there is no guarantee it will be short. That's because this is not an example of a traditional economic cycle, in which businesses expanded too much, built up too much inventory and must get rid of those excesses before they can grow again.

"This may not be a sharp recession, but it could go on for a while," said David Shulman, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast.