The best three-month stretch of hiring since 1997 has positioned the U.S. labor market to start delivering stronger wage growth for a wider swath of Americans after more than five years of sluggish recovery from a deep recession.

The economy created more than a million jobs over the past three months, with a steady gain of 257,000 in January and sizable upward revisions to prior months’ figures, the Labor Department said Friday. The hiring spree prompted many previously sidelined American workers to begin the job search, causing...