The U.S. economy continued to roll in the weeks following the presidential election.
Figures released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department showed the economy added 178,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 4.6%.
The report was close to Wall Street expectations of 175,000, though Wall Street had expected the unemployment rate to stay at 4.9%
The department also said wages put a damper on the gains, with the annualized pace of gains slumping to 2.5%.
The unemployment rate matched the lowest level since August 2007. A broader measure of joblessness that accounts for the underemployed and discouraged workers also fell sharply, declining from 9.5% in October to 9.3% in November.
Wall Street was watching the numbers closely as the first indication of jobs market strength since the Nov. 8 vote.
This also will be the last major employment indicator before the Federal Open Market Committee meets Dec. 13-14 to decide whether the economy has improved enough to resume a rate normalization cycle that started a year ago.
