An employee works on the production line at the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama facility in Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo by Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg) 
 
 The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in July, according to government data released Friday morning, surpassing economists' expectations and suggesting the economy continues to thrive after an extended streak of job gains in recent years. 
 
 The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent, compared with 4.4 percent in June, and wages rose by 2.5 percent from the year before to $26.36 in July. 
 
 “It was pretty solid across the board,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JP Morgan. “It suggests there is really no slowing in the momentum of the labor market.” 
 
 [How healthy is Trump’s economy?] 
 
 President Trump greeted the report as evidence of his administration's success, tweeting Friday morning, “Excellent Jobs Numbers just released — and I have only just begun.” 
 
 Yet average monthly jobs gains this year, which are now at 184,000, are basically in line with the average monthly gains of 187,000 in 2016. 
 
 “We’re looking at job growth that was pretty similar to what we were getting a year ago or two years ago. I just don’t think at a business cycle frequency these things respond to political developments,” Feroli said. 
 
 The U.S. labor market has made strong and steady gains in recent months, even as this period of economic expansion has stretched into the third longest in history. That has driven U.S. stock markets to record highs, with the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average closing above 22,000 Wednesday for the first time in history. The Dow opened at 22,058.39 Friday morning, before retreating slightly by mid-day. 
 
 July’s additions also signify a notable turning point for the U.S. economy: After accounting for shifts in population, the level of employment has returned to what it was at in November 2007, before the recession decimated the job market, according to research published Friday morning by the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton project. 
 
 “It does not mean there’s no slack in the economy, [or] that we’re at full employment. But it does mean the job losses from the Great Recession are behind us,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, one of the report’s authors. 
 
 Job gains were broadly spread across many sectors, with health care, restaurants and office jobs recording the strongest increases. 
 
 Low-wage industries like leisure and hospitality grew the fastest in July, a development which may help lower-income Americans get back to work, said Jed Kolko, chief economist at jobs site Indeed. Yet manufacturing hit a new low in July as a share of all U.S. jobs, said Kolko. While manufacturing has been a focus of the Trump administration, the sector continues to shed jobs, due largely to automation. 
 
 Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected 180,000 jobs to be added in the month, in line with average monthly gains for the first six months of the year. Government statisticians revised their estimates for May and June, in total adding 2,000 jobs to the rolls. 
 
 America's monthly jobs report can be hard to understand. Here's what you need to know about non-farm payroll employment and the unemployment rate—with gummy bears to help explain. (Kate M. Tobey,Gillian Brockell,Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post) 
 
 The labor force swelled as more Americans found work. The labor force participation rate, the percentage of the population that is either employed or actively seeking work, ticked up to 62.9 percent after dipping in previous months. 
 
 The jobs data is gathered from two separate surveys, one of employers and the other of households. It will be revised twice in subsequent months, sometimes significantly. 
 
 The economy's strength has encouraged the Federal Reserve to continue to gradually raise interest rates to more normal levels, after years of keeping lending easy to stimulate the economy. 
 
 Yet wage growth remains somewhat tepid, a sign that the economy may have farther to go before reaching the point where further expansion merely results in inflationary pressures. As the unemployment rate falls, business owners have to compete more to hire qualified workers, forcing them to raise wages and adding to inflation. 
 
 In a call on Thursday to state their support for Fed Chair Janet L. Yellen and urge Trump to reappoint her when her term expires early next year, members of a coalition called Fed Up argued that the economy’s recovery is not yet complete and that the Fed should maintain low interest rates to allow workers, especially lower-income communities of color, to recover from the financial crisis. 
 
 “We still don’t look like an economy that should still be raising interest rates, and we absolutely should not be raising interest rates in an autopilot kind of way,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute. 
 
 Futures contracts indicate most investors expect the central bank to hold interest rates steady when it meets in September, instead focusing on a plan to reduce its massive balance sheet. But those contracts put the odds of a rate hike in December at over 40 percent. 
 
 Investors should bet on more rate hikes this year, Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG, said in an email to clients Thursday. “Inflation is coming and the Fed has to push interest rates back to normal levels before inflation gets there.” 
 
 See also: 
 
 U.S. economy rebounds in the second quarter 
 
 Federal Reserve leaves interest rate unchanged, readies markets for balance sheet changes 
 
 Amid resistance, Trump backs away from controversial trade plan ||||| Oct. 2 -- Lena Komileva, managing director and chief economist at G+ Economics, discusses the U.S. jobs report and its impact on interest rates. She speaks to Bloomberg's Anna Edwards on "Countdown." Bloomberg 
 
 Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen answers questions during a news conference in Washington on Sept. 17, 2015. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP) 
 
 The last jobs report, released on the eve of Labor Day weekend, was billed by many as the most important reading on the health of the U.S. employment market since before the invention of the automobile. (Well, maybe that’s an exageration.) 
 
 But the August jobs report was viewed as critical at the time. It came just two weeks before the Fed’s now infamous September policy meeting — the one where they were supposed to hike interest rates for the first time since 2006, but opted not to. That decision thrust Wall Street into an uncertain state that still continues today. 
 
 That’s not to say the September jobs report, set for release at 8:30 a.m. ET today, is not important. It most certainly is. 
 
 The health of the U.S. job market remains one of the two key pillars of the Fed’s so-called dual mandate, which is getting the U.S. economy back to full employment and moving stubbornly low inflation back near the Fed’s 2% band. 
 
 For today's “Jobs Friday,” Wall Street is forecasting that the economy created 200,000 new jobs, up from the disappointing 173,000 in August. That weak jobs report, coupled with financial turbulence around the globe and a global slowdown, were cited as reasons why the Janet Yellen-led Fed opted not to hike rates a few weeks back. 
 
 The takeaway today will be whether the job market was able to hold up and withstand all the negativity caused by China’s economic swoon. 
 
 If the jobs count is north of 200,000, it gives the Fed cover to hike rates by the end of the year, as they say still say they plan to do. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1FLe3Su
– Expectations were slightly upended with today's release of the June jobs report: Most predictions had the unemployment rate ticking down from 7.6% to 7.5%, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 160,000 jobs created. That latter figure turned out to be 195,000 jobs—and yet the jobless rate held steady at 7.6%, reports the Wall Street Journal. Writing for the Journal, Paul Vigna calls out one interesting bit in the report: May's jobs were revised from 175,000 to 195,000. "That's two months in a row of 195,000, which is near enough to 200,000 to constitute an interesting trend." Also writing for the Journal, Michael Derby doesn't see the report as having much of an impact on the Federal Reserve. He writes, "The labor market continues its slow improvement, but we are still some distance from the 7% mark Fed officials say will likely coincide with them ending the bond-buying program."