U.S. employers added 312,000 workers in December as the economy benefited from retail hiring during the busy holiday shopping season and the country's economic expansion continued.

The increase reported by the U.S. Labor Department on Friday topped the average estimate of 180,000 from economists surveyed by FactSet and remained well above the level needed to keep up with inflation. The unemployment rate inched up to 3.9 percent from a nearly 50-year low of 3.7 percent as more people began seeking jobs.

The data "underscores that at least in terms of hiring and the job market, the U.S. economy remained quite solid as we wrapped up 2018," Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com, told the Washington Examiner. "It was one of the better years we've seen for hiring in three or four years."

Retailers added 24,000 new employees during the month as purchases in stores and e-commerce sites surged to the highest in six years. Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, retail spending grew 5.1 percent to $850 billion, according to a Mastercard SpendingPulse report released the day after Christmas.

Other notable hiring gains occurred in the healthcare industry, which added 50,000 workers, and bars and restaurants, which brought in 41,000 new employees. Payroll growth for November, meanwhile, was boosted to 176,000 from an original figure of 155,000.

Hourly pay climbed 3.2 percent from the previous year to $27.48, and increases were spread out more broadly rather than concentrated in a few industries, Michelle Meyer, an economist with Bank of America, told the Washington Examiner.

They're now rising "in a majority of sectors," she said.

Still, employment growth is likely to slow this year as benefits from the 2017 tax cut for businesses fade, said Michael Gapen, an economist with British lender Barclays Plc. He predicts gains of about 160,000 a month, compared with an average of about 200,000 for much of 2018.

