The nation's employers delivered a stunning burst of hiring to begin 2024, adding 353,000 jobs in January in the latest sign of the economy's continuing ability to shrug off the highest interest rates in two decades.

Friday's report from the Labor Department showed that last month's job gain topped the 333,000 that were added in December, a figure that was itself revised sharply higher. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7%, just above a half-century low.

The latest gains far exceeded expectations and showcased employers' willingness to keep hiring to meet steady consumer spending. It comes as the intensifying presidential campaign is pivoting in no small part on views of President Joe Biden's economic stewardship. Public polls show widespread dissatisfaction largely because even though inflation has sharply slowed, most prices remain well above pre-pandemic levels. Some recent surveys, though, show public approval gradually improving.

"It’s great news for working families that wages, wealth, and jobs are higher now than before the pandemic, and I won’t stop fighting to lower costs and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up," Biden said in a statement. "I’ll continue to stand in the way of efforts by Congressional Republicans to enact massive tax giveaways for the wealthy and big corporations; cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; and raise costs for American families."

In an interview with Spectrum News, Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su did not mince words about her thoughts on the jobs report, celebrating the fact that it "crushed expectations," particularly noting that the unemployment rate has been under 4% for "two years running."

"At the same time, labor force participation rate remains strong, which means that people are in the job market," Su continued. "When they're looking for jobs, there are jobs to be found. And we also saw that wage growth exceeded expectations, and that's a good thing because wage growth has been beating inflation. That means that working families have more money in their pockets for the things that they need. And that is so fundamental to Bidenomics and the president's agenda of making sure that we do right by working people."

Su also hailed the fact that the U.S. is seeing "broad-based growth" across multiple sectors, not just one in particular. For instance, Friday's report showed 74,000 jobs added in professional and business services, as well as 70,000 jobs in health care and 45,000 in the retail sector, just to name a few.

"I think this is a sign that the president's economic agenda is working," Su said of the report beating expectations. "When you invest in America, when you ensure safe roads and bridges, when you make sure that every family that turns on the faucet has clean drinking water, when you invest in our climate, you're also creating good jobs and communities that need them the most. And we are laser-focused on delivering on those things."

This week, the Federal Reserve took note of the economy's durability, with Chair Jerome Powell saying "the economy is performing well, the labor market remains strong." The Fed made clear that while it's nearing a long-awaited shift toward cutting interest rates, it's in no hurry to do so.

To fight inflation, the Fed raised its benchmark rate 11 times beginning in March 2022. The higher borrowing costs were widely expected to boost unemployment and likely cause a recession. Yet the economy has managed to produce enough job growth to avoid a recession without accelerating inflation pressures. Inflation cooled throughout 2023, making it likelier that the Fed would achieve a "soft landing" — taming inflation without derailing the economy.

A series of high-profile layoff announcements, from the likes of UPS, Google and Amazon, have raised some concerns about whether they might herald the start of a wave of job cuts. Yet measured against the nation's vast labor force, the recent layoffs haven't been significant enough to make a dent in the overall job market. Historically speaking, layoffs are still relatively low, hiring is still solid and the unemployment rate is still consistent with a healthy economy.

Consumers as a whole have proved more resilient than expected in the face of the Fed's rate hikes. Having socked away savings during the pandemic, most were willing to spend it as the economy reopened. And a wave of early retirements, some of them related to COVID-19, limited the number of people available for work and contributed to a tight labor market.

The gradual improvement in public confidence has emerged in a series of recent surveys. A measure of consumer sentiment by the University of Michigan has jumped in the past two months by the most since 1991. A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that Americans' inflation expectations have reached their lowest point in nearly three years. And a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 35% of U.S. adults call the national economy good, up from 30% who said so late last year.

The rate at which Americans are quitting their jobs, considered a reliable predictor of wage trends, has slowed to pre-pandemic levels. That suggests that workers have grown somewhat less confident of finding a better job elsewhere. Employers, as a result, may be less likely to feel pressure to raise wages to keep them —and to increase their prices to make up for their higher labor costs. That cycle can perpetuate inflation.