Investing.com -- The U.S. economy added far more jobs in September than expected, while the unemployment rate and wage growth held steady, pointing to lingering tightness in the labor market at the end of the third quarter.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 336,000 last month, the Labor Department said in its closely-monitored employment report on Friday, well above the 170,000 estimated by economists. Data for August was revised to show 227,000 were added instead of the previous reading of 187,000.
Average hourly earnings grew by 0.2% month-on-month, in line with August, the numbers showed. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.8%.
A parade of data this week had presented a nascent narrative of a resilient, but possibly gradually softening, labor market. Along with a weaker-than-projected jump in weekly initial applications for unemployment benefits, private payrolls rose by less than anticipated last month and job openings unexpectedly ticked up in August.
Markets and policymakers alike are on the lookout for any signs of strength in the jobs market. A central tenet of the Federal Reserve's recent aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes has been a slackening in labor demand, which in theory could contribute to slowing wage gains and help inflationary pressures abate.