A surge of hiring in September defies predictions, pointing to US job market's enduring resilience

abcnews.go.com:

An unforeseen burst of hiring last month has lifted hopes that the economy will prove durable once again, even as an array of threats lie ahead

WASHINGTON — An unforeseen burst of hiring last month has lifted hopes that the economy will prove durable once again, even as an array of threats lie ahead.

Businesses across the U.S. economy ramped up their hiring in September, defying surging interest rates, financial market turmoil, the ongoing threat of a government shutdown and an uncertain outlook to add the most jobs in any month since January.

The hiring binge confounded expectations for a slowdown and added one more layer of complexity to the Federal Reserve's high-wire effort to defeat inflation without causing a recession.

The 336,000 jobs that were added in September exceeded the 227,000 for August and raised the average gain for the past three months to a robust 266,000. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.8%, not far above a half-century low.

Friday's government report raised hopes for a notoriously difficult “soft landing,” by which the Federal Reserve would manage to curb high inflation with a series of rate hikes without derailing the economy.

But the healthy pace of hiring also highlights the confounding nature of the U.S. economy as it navigates the uncharted post-pandemic era. A strong job market suggests that growth might be too healthy for inflation to keep declining and that the Fed might have to further raise rates.

Speaking after the September hiring data was released, President Joe Biden asserted that the robust job growth was a result of his policies, a message he has repeated in speeches ahead of next year’s elections. Yet polls show that most adults still hold a negative view of the economy,