"On the face of this the Fed should be hiking rates with these sorts of figures, not cutting rates," Economist James Knightley said.

Friday’s report capped a week of mostly encouraging data on the job market, including an update indicating layoffs remain relatively low. Such strength helps allay one of Wall Street’s top questions: whether the job market will continue to hold up after the Federal Reserve earlier kept interest rates at a two-decade high.

In a statement on Thursday, the International Longshoremen’s Association said it had reached a tentative agreement on wages that would see its 35,000 members resume work at ports across the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, before returning to the negotiating table on Jan. 15 2025.