Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 215,000 in July, the Labor Department said Friday. Revisions showed employers added 14,000 more jobs in May and June than previously estimated.
The unemployment rate, which is obtained from a separate survey of U.S. households, held steady at 5.3% in July.
The results were in line with forecasts. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted payrolls would rise by 215,000 in July and the unemployment rate would stay at 5.3%.
Average hourly earnings of private-sector workers rose 5 cents, or 0.2%, last month to $24.99. From a year earlier, wages were up 2.1%, roughly in line with the 2.0% pace during the six-year expansion.
Meanwhile, the share of Americans participating in the labor force was unchanged at 62.6% in July. That matches the lowest reading since 1977. In July, there were 1.9 million Americans marginally attached to the labor force.
Federal Reserve officials are looking for signs the economy is moving toward full employment and inflation will eventually head toward the central bank's 2% target before they raise interest rates for the first time since 2006.
While inflation is expected to remain weak through next year, the labor market may allow the Fed to move on rates as soon as September.
"I think there is a high bar right now to not acting, speaking for myself," Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said this past week in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "It will take a significant deterioration in the economic picture for me to be disinclined to move ahead."
Fed officials will also have the August jobs report in hand prior to their next meeting on Sept. 16-17.
Job growth in July was concentrated in the service sector, led by retail, health care, professional and technical services like computer systems design, financial activities, and at restaurants and bars.
Manufacturers added 15,000 jobs. The mining sector, which includes the oil and gas industry, shed 5,000 positions. Since hitting a peak in December, sector employment has fallen by 78,000.
The unemployment rate at 5.3% in July indicates that 8.3 million people who wanted a job couldn't find one. Another 6.3 million were working part time but would have preferred full-time employment.
A broad measure of unemployment that includes those Americans looking for work, stuck in part-time jobs or too discouraged to look for work ticked town to 10.4% from 10.5%.
In one positive sign, the average workweek rose by 0.1 hour to 34.6 hours in July.
Write to Jeffrey Sparshott at jeffrey.sparshott@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 07, 2015 08:40 ET (12:40 GMT)
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