America’s employers ramped up hiring in March, driving the unemployment rate down to a five-month low of 4.4 percent, the Associated Press reported.

A report released by the U.S. Labor Department today showed that companies boosted their payrolls by 180,000 in March, the most since December. Workers’ paychecks also got bigger. The new figures suggested that companies are not feeling a need to dramatically clamp down on hiring in the face of the slower overall economic activity and a deep housing slump.

“There’s been worry that housing troubles would seep into the rest of the economy and hurt jobs but that is not happening now,” said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services. “This says employers are finding that they need people and when they need people they hire them. These are good, healthy numbers.”

The figures were better than economists were expecting. They had projected that the economy would add around 135,000 new jobs in March and that the unemployment rate would edge up to 4.6 percent.