WASHINGTON (AP) - In the most impressive surge for the job market since early last year, the United States added 243,000 jobs in January, far more than economists expected. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years.
Hiring accelerated across the economy and up and down the pay scale. The high-salary professional services industry added 70,000 jobs, the most in 10 months. Manufacturing added 50,000, the most in a year.
"This is a very positive employment report from almost any angle," said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Amherst College.
The report could enhance President Barack Obama's hopes for re-election, which is turning on the health of the economy. The unemployment rate is the lowest since February 2009, one month after Obama took office.
Obama got a fresh talking point in the report as he works to persuade voters that his solutions for the nation's job woes are working and to give him four more years to turn the economy around completely.
His Republican foes were quick to use the new numbers to argue that the pace of change wasn't swift enough.
"We can do better," said GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, who added: "These numbers cannot hide the fact that President Obama's policies have prevented a true economic recovery."
Money poured into the stock market, already off to its best start in 15 years because of improving confidence in the economy, and out of more conservative investments in bonds.
The Dow Jones industrial average shot 150 points higher to 12,855 and appeared headed for its highest close since the spring before the 2008 financial crisis. The Nasdaq composite index was within reach of its highest close since 2000.
The 243,000 jobs added far exceeded the estimate by economists of 155,000, according to FactSet, a provider of financial data. Other economist estimates were even lower.
It was the most jobs created since April of last year, when 251,000 jobs were created. Before last spring, the last month with stronger hiring, excluding temporary hiring for the census, was March 2006 - almost two years before the Great Recession.
Hiring was stronger in November and December by 60,000 jobs than first estimated. It was also stronger over the past two years than previously thought. The economy added 1.82 million jobs last year, nearly twice as many as in 2010.
The unemployment rate came down two notches from the 8.5 percent in December. It was also the fifth consecutive month the rate has fallen, the first time that has happened since late 1994.
The government uses a survey of mostly large companies and government agencies to determine how many jobs were added or lost each month. It uses a separate survey of households to determine the unemployment rate.
The household survey had more encouraging news: 631,000 people said they found work in January. That pushed the number of unemployed down to 12.8 million, the fewest in three years.
And a quarter-million people streamed back into the work force and started looking for jobs. Because people are counted as unemployed only if they are looking for work, that makes the drop in the unemployment rate all the more impressive.
Economists said it was probably less likely that the Federal Reserve would take additional steps to help the economy anytime soon, as some investors have expected. The Fed has already held interest rates near zero for three years and bought almost $2 trillion in government bonds and other securities to keep long-term rates low.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the central bank planned to keep rates near zero at least until late 2014. But if the unemployment rate keeps coming down, that date could be moved up, several economists said.
In Arlington, Va., Obama pointed out that the economy had added 3.7 million private sector jobs over the past 23 months. He acknowledged there were still too many Americans out of work, or working only part-time.
"But the economy is growing stronger," Obama said. "The recovery is speeding up. We've got to do everything in our power to keep it going. We can't go back to the policies that led to the recession, and we can't let Washington stand in the way of the recovery."
The president called on congressional Republicans to extend a 2-percentage-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax. The cut, put in place at the beginning of 2011, will expire Feb. 29 unless Congress acts.
Eleven million people are either working part-time but would prefer full-time work, or have stopped searching for jobs. When those people are added to the 12.8 million unemployed, nearly 24 million are considered "underemployed." The so-called "underemployment" rate edged down in January to 15.1 percent, from 15.2 percent.
Employers have added an average of 201,000 jobs a month in the past three months. That's 50,000 more jobs per month than the economy averaged in each month last year.
The Labor Department's January jobs report was filled with other encouraging data and revisions. The
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