US non-farm payrolls rise by 209,000 in July

America's economy continued creating jobs at a steady pace in July even as wage growth continued to remain moderate.

US non-farm payrolls increased by 209,000 last month, with revisions to data for the previous two months adding 2,000 more people, according to the Department of Labor.

The jobless rate fell to 4.3% even as the labour-force participation rate edged up from 62.8% to 62.9%.

Economists had forecast 183,000 new jobs and a one tenth of a percentage point dip in the unemployment rate from 4.4% in June to 4.3%.

Average hourly earnings increased by 0.3% on the month, which was also in-line with forecasts. In comparison to a year-ago, earnings were 2.5% higher (consensus: 2.4%).

Hiring rose in services, with companies adding 183,000 people to their payrolls, versus a gain of 162,00 in June.

Job growth in goods-producing industries on the other hand slowed down, rising by 22,000 after an increase of 32,000 in June.

Meanwhile, the index of aggregate weekly hours advanced at a 0.2% month-on-month clip with the number of average weekly hours steady at 34.5 (consensus: 34.5).

Commenting on Friday's jobs release, Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets said: "the US Non-farm payroll number was very decent with participation rate ticking higher.

"Going forward, traders will be focusing on two key data – the average hourly earnings and the household income creation. If we are to see a rise in GDP in 2H we need the increase of household income to materialize faster. The data however is currently pointing in a different direction. Based on the 2Q GDP results it is consumers who made the largest contribution to growth. Therefore, we expect the wage and salary gains to remain a key indicator for economic growth in the second half of 2017."

To take note of, Aslam pointed out how historically the headline NFP tally had a tendency to undershoot economists' forecasts in July, by about 12,000 over the past 10 years. In July 2016 the miss was 75,000.

For his part, Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital observed: "A lot of fuss over nothing. We've just seen wild gyrations in the market to a report that was pretty much as expected. The dollar jumped as the report was a little ahead of expectations but there is absolutely nothing in this that changes the dial on the Fed or inflation."

As of 1342 BST, the yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note was three basis points higher to 2.25%.