WASHINGTON — In a long-awaited surge of hiring, companies added 243,000 jobs in January – across the economy, up and down the pay scale and far more than just about anyone expected. Unemployment fell to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years.

The surprisingly strong jobs report prompted hope that the economy’s recovery is finally kicking into high gear and pushed stocks to their highest levels since before the financial crisis struck.

“It feels like businesses are finally looking to expand their operations, which means more hiring,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, a forecasting and consulting firm. “The lack of hiring has been the missing link in this recovery. We may have found the missing link.”

The national rate remains slightly below Broward’s December unemployment rate of 8.7 percent, and well under Miami-Dade’s 10.2 percent rate. The local jobs picture in both counties has improved in recent months; the latest gauge will come in two weeks, when Florida releases county unemployment rates for January.

In a month that didn’t feel like winter across much of the country, the job numbers also were hotter than expected. Private-sector employers added 257,000 jobs in January, but 14,000 lost government jobs dragged down the total number.

The broad nature of job gains in the Bureau of Labor Statistics report was most encouraging. Manufacturing added 50,000 posts, and professional and business services — many of them well-paid white-collar jobs — posted the largest gain, 70,000 jobs. Even the hard-hit construction sector improved, adding 21,000 jobs.

“It is a fantastic jobs report, not a single blemish,” said Zandi. “Jobs were up big, and unemployment was down big. All the leading indicators in the report suggest continued solid job growth at least into the spring.”

The unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percentage point — the fifth straight month that the rate has dropped. It was at 9.1 percent as recently as August.

On Wall Street, where investors had already driven stocks to their best start in 15 years because of optimism about the economy, the jobs report triggered a spasm of buying.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 156.82 points, its second-best showing this year, and finished the day at 12,862.23, its highest close since May 2008, four months before the financial crisis struck. The Nasdaq composite index finished at its highest level since December 2000. Money poured out of bonds, which are considered less risky than stocks, and bond yields rose. The Standard & Poors 500 rose 19 points, or 1.46 percent, to close at 1,345.

“The real stimulant to future economic growth is the ‘boost in confidence’ this report provides to the roughly 92 percent of the workforce (that) already has a job,” said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist for Wells Capital Management, in a research note.

The 243,000 jobs added far exceeded the estimate by economists of 155,000, according to FactSet, a provider of financial data. Some surveys of economists came in even lower.

“Virtually every economist on the planet had expected a drop in the rate of job gains in January, which makes today’s upward surprise even more surprising,” Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at the brokerage BTIG, said in a note to clients. In December, 203,000 jobs were created.