U.S. added stronger than expected 162,000 jobs in August as labor market bounced back

The U.S. labor market strengthened appreciably in August, giving the growing group of hawks at the Fed more ammunition to hike interest rates at the bank’s policy meeting in less than two weeks.

According to the government’s Nonfarm Payrolls report released Friday morning, the U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs last month. That was well above the consensus estimate of 56,000 and followed the addition…