WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. created 155,000 jobs in the last month of 2012 and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.8%, suggesting the budget battle in Washington over the fiscal cliff didn’t do much damage to the economy.

The pace of hiring in December almost perfectly matched the level of job growth over the past two years. The U.S. has added an average of 153,000 jobs each month in both 2011 and 2012, the Labor Department said. See more charts of jobs data.

Analysis: December jobless picture

The upshot: The U.S. economy continues to expand at a gradual pace. Companies are hiring enough workers to keep up with growth in the labor force and slowly whittle down the unemployment rate, although millions of people are still struggling to find full-time work.

“The trend is okay,” said Scott Brown, chief economist of Raymond James. “We’ll really like to see payroll gains of 250,000 to 300,000 a month to make up for all the jobs lost during the downturn.”

The still-high unemployment rate, for its part, will keep in place the Federal Reserve’s strategy of buying billions in bonds for the indefinite future. The Fed wants the jobless rate to fall below 6.5% before it eases up on its controversial bond-buying plan. The goal is to lower interest rates to make it cheaper for businesses and consumers to borrow, spend and invest.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected the U.S. to gain about 160,000 jobs in December. The unemployment rate, originally reported as 7.7% in November, was revised to 7.8% after the Labor Department’s annual seasonal adjustment conducted each December.

The revised unemployment rate over the course of 2012 was little changed, however.

In recent action, U.S. stocks were mixed after the jobs report. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.02% and Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.75% fell slightly while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.41% edged higher. Read Market Snapshot

Revised job growth in November and October, meanwhile, didn’t alter the picture of the labor market. The government revised up the increase in November to 161,000 from 146,000, but it lowered job growth for October to 137,000 from 138,000.

Hiring in December was strong in health care, manufacturing, construction and bars and restaurants.

The health-care industry added 45,000 jobs to lead the way, based on preliminary numbers from the Labor Department. Some 30,000 construction workers were hired and manufacturers boosted payrolls by 25,000, perhaps because of rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy.

“Some of the strength in construction and manufacturing payrolls could be attributed to rebuilding from the storm,” said Sophia Koropeckyj, managing director at Moody’s Analytics.

Employment fell by 11,300 in the retail sector and the government shed 13,000 jobs. Courier jobs, a volatile category in the holiday season, also declined.

Average hourly earnings rose 7 cents, or 0.3%, to $23.73. The wages of American workers have risen 2.1% over the past 12 months, just slightly ahead of the inflation rate of 1.8%

The average workweek edged up 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours. The workweek usually rises when the economy gets stronger.

A broader measure of unemployment, the U6 rate, was unchanged at 14.4%. The U6 rate includes workers too discouraged to look for a job and people force to work part-time because they cannot find a full-time position.

Hiring outlook

While the increase in U.S. employment remains steady, there’s little evidence to indicate hiring is on the upswing. What’s more, reported job growth in December tends to be more volatile than in other months owing to the holiday shopping season and other end-of-the year quirks.

Applicants register before meeting potential employers at the Diversity Job Fair on December 6, 2012 in Manhattan, New York City. Getty Images

Other employment indicators suggest the U.S. continues to add jobs at a modest pace. While hiring is taking place fast enough to slowly reduce the unemployment rate, it’s well below the typical pace of job creation at this stage of a current economy recovery.

The effects on hiring of the budget deal reached in Washington, meanwhile, are unclear. The compromise staves off a broad array of tax hikes and sharp spending cuts, but some taxes will still go up. The payroll tax for most workers, for instance, will rise 2 percentage points .

As a result, many analysts have trimmed their forecast for economic growth in 2013, especially in the first six months of the year.

“You are going to have this hit from the payroll-tax increase,” said Brown.

What’s more, the Republican-led House of Representatives and Democratic White House will face more budget hurdles in the near future that could unnerve businesses, investors and consumers alike.

The legal limit on how much debt the U.S. government can accumulate has nearly been reached and Washington must still figure out whether to let scheduled cuts in defense and domestic spending kick in.

A previous fight over the debt limit partly damaged the economy in the summer of 2011.