(Bloomberg) -- America’s labor-market juggernaut continued toroll unabated at the end of 2015.

Employers in December added 292,000 workers, exceeding thehighest estimate in a Bloomberg survey, and payrolls for theprevious two months were revised higher, a Labor Department reportshowed on Friday.

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The jobless rate held at 5 percent as people entering thelabor force found work.

At the same time, worker pay disappointed, rising less thanforecast from a year earlier.

Stocks and the dollar climbed after the report showed durablestrength in the job market that indicates employers were optimisticabout the economy’s prospects just before the recent rout in globalfinancial markets.

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Federal Reserve policy makers, who raised interest rates inDecember for the first time in almost a decade and signaled furthermoves would be gradual, are counting on tighter labor conditions tolead to a pickup in wages and inflation.

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“This should calm some fears about the U.S. economy losinggrowth momentum,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist atJPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York and a former Fedeconomist.

It “also validates the sense that there’s no rush to tightenagain because we’re not seeing much wage pressure.”

Survey results

The December advance exceeded the highest forecast in aBloomberg survey and followed a 252,000 increase in November thatwas stronger than the previously estimated 211,000.

The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for200,000.

The readings capped the second-best year for hiring since1999.

The December job gains, which were probably helped by mildwinter weather across much of the country, were led bytemporary-help services, health care, transportation andconstruction.

Labor Department revisions to prior reports added a total of50,000 jobs to payrolls in November and October. For all of 2015,employment climbed by 2.65 million after a 3.1 million gain in2014, for the best back-to-back years since 1998-99.

Economists’ forecasts

December payroll estimates of 92 economists in the Bloombergsurvey ranged from gains of 135,000 to 250,000.

The unemployment rate, which is derived from a separate surveyof households, matched the median forecast.

The unemployment rate for all of 2015 averaged 5.3 percent, thebest since 2007, when it was 4.6 percent.

While employers continue to aggressively add to headcounts,worker pay has yet to show a sustainable pickup.

Average hourly earnings in December were unchanged from theprior month and increased 2.5 percent from a year earlier. Themedian forecast called for a 2.7 percent year-over-year gain.

The year-to-year advance, which was the biggest since October,was primarily due to an easy comparison with December 2014, whenearnings fell 0.2 percent from the previous month.

This so-called base effect will probably result in some paybackwith the January employment report when earnings come up against astrong January 2015 comparison.

The average workweek for all workers held in December at 34.5hours.

Another caveat about the wage and hours results: The Bureau ofLabor Statistics found a processing error in the data from March2006 through February 2009 and will issue corrected figures on Feb.5.

The participation rate, which shows the share of working-agepeople in the labor force, increased to a four-month high of 62.6percent from 62.5 percent.

Among measures of labor-market slack, the number of Americanswho are working part time though would rather have a full-timeposition, or the measure known as part-time for economic reasons,eased to 6.02 million from 6.09 million.

Underemployment rate

The underemployment rate--which includes part-time workers who’dprefer a full-time position and people who want to work but havegiven up looking--held at 9.9 percent.

Employment over the final three months of 2015 increased 284,000on average, the most since January 2015.

Hiring gains last month were broad-based, with constructionadding 45,000 jobs, health-care providers taking on 52,600 andtemporary help services boosting headcounts by 34,400. Factorieseven added the most jobs--8,000--n five months.

Minutes of the Fed’s December meeting, when policy makersboosted their target rate for federal funds, showed participantsacknowledged the improvement in labor market conditions. Manyjudged it as “substantial.”

“Members agreed that a range of recent labor market indicators,including ongoing job gains and declining unemployment, showedfurther improvement and confirmed that underutilization of laborresources had diminished appreciably since early this year,”according to the minutes, released on Wednesday.

At the same time, Fed officials said there was room for slack tobe absorbed and signaled further hikes in interest rates wouldoccur gradually.

On Thursday, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index capped itsworst-ever four-day start to a year as turmoil in China spreadaround the world. Selling in global equities began in China, whereshares fell 7 percent after the central bank weakened the yuan aneighth day. Crude settled at a 12-year low, and copper dipped below$2 for the first time since 2009.

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