The US economy generated 248,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said this afternoon.
The unemployment rate, based on a separate survey, held steady at 5.6%, the government said.
The report was better than the 225,000 new jobs expected on Wall Street and suggested the labour market was growing enough to sustain economic growth.
The government also revised upward its estimate for job growth in April to 346,000 from a previous estimate of 337,000. And the estimate for March was boosted to 353,000.
So far in 2004, the US economy has created 1.2 million jobs, an average of 238,000 jobs a month after shedding 2.7 million between March 2001 and August 2003.
