With the recently-released Labor Department figures revealing that jobs gains for the month of July topped the economists’ forecast, concerns have somewhat been eased about the US slowdown and the apparently faltering three-year expansion.

According to the figures released by the Labor Department in Washington, three months of weak hiring reversed in July, with employers adding as many as 163,000 jobs during the month; thereby surpassing the average of 100,000 jobs gains figure projected by 89 economists in a Bloomberg poll.

Furthermore, as per the Labor Department statistics, private payrolls - excluding government agencies – witnessed a jobs gain of 172,000, beating the forecasts of an 110,000 gain. As a result of the jobs gain in July, the US has now recovered 4 million out of the 8.8 million jobs lost in the country during the 18-month recession period which came to an end in 2009.

Countering recent reports which predicted slower consumer demand and contraction in manufacturing, the boost in the July employment numbers largely came from automakers and health-care providers; and the surprising gains assuaged US slowdown concerns despite the fact that there was an unexpected 8.3 percent increase in unemployment rate – the biggest increase in jobless rate in the last five months.

Commenting on jobs gains in July, Scott Brown - investment firm Raymond James chief economist – said: "It's not especially weak, but it's not especially strong.”