U.S. businesses boosted hiring in November, putting this year on track for the best 12-month period of job growth since 1999 during the dot-com boom.

Nonfarm employers added 321,000 jobs during the month of November, the most in a month since January 2012, and employment increases in October and September were adjusted upward as well, according to the Labor Department in figures released on Friday. The unemployment rate remained unchanged from October at 5.8 percent, but was well down from 7 percent in November 2013, according to the Wall Street Journal.

There were also signs of wage growth accelerating in the report, a promising sign as wages had been suppressed during the recovery. This would boost incomes and help consumer spending during the holidays, another sign that “we’re taking off,” Beth Ann Bovino, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services’ chief economist, said in the report.

The bump in the labor market could protect the U.S. from a global slowdown in the economy, and further strong job gains could also prompt the Federal Reserve to start raising short-term interest rates that have sat at near zero for six years as the financial crisis has persisted.

The first increase should happen sometime next year while the economy gains strength, as officials still believe inflation is too slow at below 2 percent of the Fed’s target. If unemployment declines further, and inflation starts to pick up, the Fed may then look at bumping up the interest rate.

The average hourly earnings for workers in the private sector jumped nine cents to $24.66, a 0.4 percent increase from October. That figure represented a monthly gain that was double the average for the last 12 months, and a 2.1 percent rise from last year — slightly over the 2 percent annual growth that the economy has experienced in recent years.