job market

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 76 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 16,330 Thursday.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 10 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,952. The Nasdaq composite climbed 39 points, or 0.8 percent, to 4,796.

Freight company Con-Way soared 34 percent after agreeing to be acquired by XPO Logistics.

The figures released Thursday capture the persistently uneven nature of the recovery from the Great Recession.

The job market "remains consistent with a two-steps-forward, one-step-back expansion the U.S. economy finds itself in," said Scott Andersen, chief economist at Bank of the West.

The economy gained 223,000 jobs last month, and unemployment edged down from 5.5 percent in May, the Labor Department reported.