The US economy added more jobs than forecast in December while the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday showed 256,000 new jobs were created in December,

Friday’s jobs report was “even more important” than normal as the market adjusts its assessment of the direction of the economy.

The economy created 256,000 jobs in December, much stronger than what was predicted by Wall Street experts and more than 40,000 from the previous month, the Labor Department in its report released on Friday.