NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Job growth picked up in February, topping forecasts on Wall Street, according to a government report Friday.

The economy generated 243,000 new jobs last month, up from a revised 170,000 in January, the Labor Department reported. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a gain of 210,000 jobs.

It marked the second best gain in U.S. payrolls over the last 12 months, trailing only November, when job growth bounced back after being depressed by the impact of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Still, even with strong job growth last month, the unemployment rate edged up to 4.8 percent from 4.7 percent rate in January, as more people who had stopped looking for work started looking again.

The household survey used to generate the unemployment rate showed 335,000 additional people in the labor force last month.

The other closely watched number in the report, the average hourly wage, edged up 5 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $16.47, in line with forecasts of economists surveyed by Briefing.

Overall, the numbers struck a good balance between job growth with modest inflationary pressures, economists said.

"The rise in the unemployment rate takes much of the sting away from the robust gain in payrolls from a monetary policy perspective," said Anthony Chan, chief economist of JPMorgan Private Client Services. "The big fear ahead of the release of this report was that labor markets were overheating."

But he noted that the tame wage number means "the expansion remains on a sustainable track without the near-term threat of major inflationary pressures."

On Wall Street, stocks were mostly higher in early trading after the report.

The gain in wages lifted the average hourly wage 56 cents, or 3.5 percent, over the last 12 months, the biggest percentage gains since the month of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But the 12-month gain had been nearly as high -- 3.4 percent -- in January. And the increased wages still trailed the 4.0 percent rise in consumer prices over the 12-months ending in January, according to a separate Labor Department report, meaning hourly workers' pay lost ground to inflation over the last year.

The jobs report is getting particular attention now because the Federal Reserve has gone on record as saying future interest rate hikes will depend upon economic readings.

Another quarter percentage point hike is widely expected when the central bank's policy-makers meet March 27-28, and there is growing consensus that there will be another hike at the following meeting May 10.

Bill Cheney, chief economist for John Hancock Financial Services, said he doesn't think that Friday's report does much to change the Fed thinking either way.

"I don't think it really suggests there is any inflation developing -- a 0.3 percent rise in wages is pretty manageable," he said. "But it's a pretty positive report; it suggests that the overall jobs market is pretty healthy."

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