WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added a surprisingly solid 119,000 jobs in September, the government said, issuing a key economic report that had been delayed for seven weeks by the federal government shutdown.

The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3% in August, the Labor Department said Thursday.

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The increase in payrolls was more than double the 50,000 economists had forecast. But Labor Department revisions showed that the economy lost 4,000 jobs in August instead of gaining 22,000 as originally reported.

During the 43-day U.S. government shutdown, investors, businesses, policymakers and the Federal Reserve were groping in the dark for clues about the health of the American job market because federal workers had been furloughed and couldn’t collect the data.

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