Another month of solid US hiring clears way for Fed hike

The robust hiring indicates that consumer spending is powering the economy even as weak growth overseas and low oil prices squeeze U.S. manufacturers and drillers.

Investors cheered the jobs report, with the Dow Jones industrial average jumping nearly 250 points in midday trading.

Job growth has been solid, and wages have begun to rise but not so much as to cause concern about future high inflation.

Since the recession ended, average hourly pay has grown at only about two-thirds of the pace typical of a healthy economy.

The November jobs report shows that the U.S. economy "is strong enough to withstand an initial hike in interest rates from what were seen as emergency record-low levels," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.

The sizable gain in construction jobs last month, even as the Fed is preparing to raise rates, suggests that few expect higher borrowing costs to derail home building or sales.

CEO Tiger Tyagarajan says Genpact has added about 400 people to its 4,000 person U.S. workforce this year, many of them in highly skilled areas such as software programming and management consulting.

[...] a strong U.S. dollar is weighing on U.S. exports and cutting factory output, while also lowering profits for U.S. multinational corporations.