WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The rebound in the April job report gives the Federal Reserve the green light to raise interest rates in September, economists said.

The Labor Department reported that the labor market churned out a healthy 223,000 new jobs in April, and the unemployment rate fell to 5.4%, the lowest level since mid-2008.

“I think the April report comes too late to put June on the table but there is going to be a focus on September,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust, in an interview.

The data gives support to the consensus view at the Fed that the first-quarter growth was an aberration, he said. Two Fed officials, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart,a key moderate on the policy committee, and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, a leading dove on the central bank, both said this week that they expected the economy to improve after the dismal first quarter.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, agreed that September was the likely date for lift off. Interest rates have been near zero since the end of 2008.

“The rebound in the economic data flow adds to the likelihood of the Fed opting to begin the process of gradually raising interest rates later this year, with September looking the most likely start date providing the data remain consistent with the moderate recovery story in coming months,” Williamson said in a research note.

Sal Guatieri, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, said June was too early given continued slack in the labor market.

“The Fed will take some comfort from the snappy rebound in job growth, though indications of continued slack in the labor market should at least delay rate lift-off until September,” he said.

Also see:Jobs growth is ‘back on track,’ economists say

The view of a September move was not unanimous.There were some economists who thought the Fed rate hike would not come until closer to the end of the year.

Brian Bethune, an economist at Tufts University, said the Fed already effectively engineered a tightening when they started talking late last year about a mid-year hike.

He said that “open-mouth” policy, which led to a steep rise in the dollar’s value in foreign exchange markets, caused the first quarter’s slowdown.

The U.S. economy has “skirted a very significant slowdown,” Bethune said.

But the Fed is going to have to “sit here and wait until very late in the year” before attempting to raise interest rates again.

Eric Green, head of U.S. rates and economic research at TD Securities, said the job report “raises more questions on our September call, not less.” He noted that job gains in March was revised down to 85,000 from the prior estimate of 126,000.

Traders who use futures contracts to bet on the timing and pace of Fed rate hikes are wagering that the central bank will not move until December.