US creates 287,000 jobs in June

US employers added new workers at a surprisingly strong rate in June after an unnerving stall in May, delivering a fresh sign of US economic strength, the Labour Department reported on Friday.

Private businesses and government authorities generated 287,000 new positions last month, 112,000 more than analysts had expected.

That largely compensated for the poor numbers from May that had shocked policymakers and markets, sending the dollar lower and contributing to the Federal Reserve's decision last month to put off an interest rate hike.

May's job creation numbers in fact were revised downward in Friday's data from the original 38,000 reported to just 11,000.

June's hiring levels boosted the monthly average of the last three months to a solid 147,000, which economists say is at least adequate to keep up with the steady increase in the size of the US workforce.

"That economic pause you were worried about? It never happened," tweeted University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers.

The dollar pushed up sharply higher immediately after the new data was released, jumping to US$1.1016 against the euro compared with US$1.1078 before the announcement.

US bond yields, which had plunged in recent weeks with the 10-year Treasury hitting a record low, spiked higher in early trade.

The jobs report was not unequivocally all good news. Wage growth, another indicator of the strength of the employment market and the economy generally, slowed, bringing the annual pace for the last three months to 2.5 per cent, compared with the 12-month rate of 2.6 per cent.

And the US unemployment rate, which is based on a separate database from the job creation numbers, rose by 0.2 percentage points to 4.9 per cent, though still near the lowest level in more than eight years.

That rise was mainly due to a large jump in the number of people reported rejoining the workforce, diluting the impact of the hiring surge on the jobless rate.

In May, the unemployment rate had fallen from 5.0 per cent to 4.7 per cent after the volatile data showed a huge number of people had dropped out from the labour force.