U.S. Economy, Showing Resilience, Added 156,000 Jobs Last Month

As an election season defined by fears about jobs and wages enters the final stretch, the American economy looks a bit more resilient than some campaign rhetoric might suggest.

Employers added 156,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, enough to accommodate new entrants to the labor force and entice back workers who dropped out after the Great Recession.

The unemployment rate, which has been stuck at 4.9 percent since the spring, ticked up slightly to 5 percent.

For all the anxiety at home as well as turmoil abroad, like the “Brexit” vote in Britain, the American job machine continues to hum along.

Average hourly earnings moved higher by 0.2 percentage point last month, bringing the wage gain over the last 12 months to a decent gain of 2.6 percent.

“It was solid, not spectacular,” said Diane Swonk, a veteran independent economist in Chicago. “The good news is that participation went up, even though the unemployment rate did, too. Regaining that ground is very important.”

In the wake of these figures, the Federal Reserve is still expected to raise interest rates late this year, and there was little in the report to suggest that the job gains might lead to inflation.

“There are still plenty of unemployed people out there, enough for employers to continue to hire at a substantial pace,” said Michael Gapen, chief United States economist at Barclays.

“The expansion will end before you run out of labor,” added Mr. Gapen, who estimates that the unemployment rate could drop to 4 percent by the end of 2017. The participation rate inched up to 62.9 percent, which explains the rise in the overall jobless rate to 5 percent.

Moreover, the labor force itself jumped by nearly half a million, a bright spot in an otherwise steady-as-she-goes picture of the economy.

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