WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. hiring picked up unexpectedly in December as employers added a strong 256,000 jobs, another sign of the economy’s resilience in the face of high interest rates.

Job growth rose 212,000 last month from November, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The U.S. continued to create jobs steadily throughout 2024, 2.2 million in all, yet that growth has slowed as the explosion of hiring that followed the pandemic begins to normalize. The number of jobs created last year was down from the 3 million added in 2023, the 4.5 million in 2022, and the record 6.4 million jobs added in 2021 as the economy bounded back from massive pandemic layoffs.

By any measure, however, 256,000 new jobs in a month is impressive: In the five years before the pandemic, solid years for the economy, job growth averaged 190,000 a month.

And the jobs created in December were far greater than economist projections of 155,000 new jobs. Unemployment, which was expected to hover around 4.2%, fell to 4.1% last month. Healthcare companies added 46,000 jobs, retailers 43,000 and government agencies at the federal, state and local 33,000. But manufacturers cut 13,000 jobs.

U.S. markets tumbled immediately on the release of the December jobs number because the odds that the Federal Reserve will slow its plans to cut interest rates from here are growing. The economy doesn’t seem to need the help.

But rates are still painfully high for Americans trying to buy a house or finance a car or appliance. Mortgage rates just rose for the fourth consecutive week and remain at the highest level since July.

Average hourly wages rose 0.3% from November and 3.9% from a year earlier. The year-over-year wage gain was slightly less than economists had forecast.

Labor Department revisions shaved 8,000 jobs from October and November payrolls.

Getting a clear view of the U.S. job market hasn’t been easy the past few months.

Hurricanes and a big strike at Boeing threw off the October jobs numbers, pushing them down and setting up a payback rebound in November that likely exaggerated the strength of hiring.

Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at Jefferies, said that seasonal adjustments around the holidays may have affected the December numbers, but he added that nonetheless “it is hard to say anything negative about the details of this report.”

Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group, was impressed by the combination of strong job growth, falling unemployment and modest wage increases that take the edge off the inflationary threat. “You put all that together, and it looks very good from an overall economic standpoint,’’ he said.

Over the past few years, the strength of the U.S. economy and the job market have surprised almost everyone. Responding to inflation that hit a four-decade high two and a half years ago, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate – the fed funds rate — 11 times in 2022 and 2023, taking it to the highest level in more than two decades.

The higher borrowing costs were widely expected to cause a recession but didn’t. Companies kept hiring, consumers kept spending, and the economy kept rolling along. In fact, U.S. gross domestic product – the nation’s output of goods and services — has expanded at a robust annual pace of 3% or more in four of the last five quarters.

American workers enjoy unusual job security. Layoffs are running below pre-pandemic trends. On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that just 211,000 people applied for unemployment benefits last week, the fewest in nearly a year.

Inflation has come down, too, from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 2.7% in November. The drop in year-over-year price increases gave the Fed enough confidence to cut rates three times in the last four months of 2024.

But Fed officials signaled at their December meeting that they planned to be more cautious about rate cuts this year. They now project just two rate reductions in 2025, down from the four they envisioned back in September. Progress against inflation has stalled in recent months, and it remains stuck above the Fed’s 2% target.

The healthy jobs report makes it much less likely the Fed will cut its key interest rate at its next meeting in January, and could lead policymakers to keep rates unchanged for months. Strong job growth provides more fuel for consumer spending and economic expansion. Healthy demand, in turn, could keep inflation elevated or even push it higher.

Many economists now don’t expect the Fed to cut rates again until the second half of this year, if at all.

“The odds have increased that the Fed is close to being finished” with its rate cuts, Thomas Ryan, an economist at consulting firm Capital Economics, wrote in an note to clients.

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AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this story.