By Rupert Neate, Feb. 6, 2015, TheGuardian.com

The US economy added 257,000 jobs in January, beating expectations of 230,000 jobs and giving the market renewed confidence in the health of the nation’s economy.

The Labor Department also revised jobs data from for November and December to show 147,000 more jobs were created than previously estimated. The revised figures for November show 423,000 jobs were created – the most since May 2010.

“With today’s strong employment report, we have now seen eleven straight months of job gains above 200,000 – the first time that has happened in nearly two decades,” wrote Jason Furman, chairman of the White House’s council of economic advisers.

The private sector has now added 11.8m jobs over 59 straight months of job growth, extending the longest streak on record.

“We keep trying to tell everyone that the US economy is enjoying a period of unusual strength; maybe now people will believe us,” said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at thinktank Capital Economics. “The economy is doing so well that it has created more than 1 million additional jobs in the last three months alone. That’s the strongest pace of job growth we’ve seen since 1997.”