By Peter Spence, Economics Correspondent

Strong US jobs growth will open the door for the Federal Reserve to raise its interest rates for the first time since the financial crisis, official data is expected to confirm this week.

Figures released on Thursday are likely to show that the American economy added a further 230,000 jobs in June, all but confirming that the world’s biggest economy is booming again, experts say.

The swift pace of hiring follows a bumper month in May – when 280,000 jobs were created – and take the unemployment rate 0.1 percentage point lower to 5.4pc in June.

Analysts at UBS said: “Although there is some month-to-month volatility in the unemployment rate, the trend is firmly downward.” The Swiss bank expects unemployment to drop to 5pc in the final quarter of the year, and to 4.6pc a year later.

The jobs data will pave the way for the Federal Reserve to increase its rates from the emergency levels of the past six years. Central bank watchers now believe that a rate rise could come in September.

The chances of a Fed rate hike as viewed by financial markets

Evidence that the US is bouncing back tallies with the Federal Reserve’s view that weakness at the start of the year was merely “transitory”. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which decides US interest rates,declared that the economy was “expanding moderately”.

While financial markets continue to expect the Fed to make its move in December, September looks increasingly the more likely. Philip Lachowycz, of Fathom Consulting, said a “healthy set of US economic data should give the Fed yet more confidence that the first quarter blip was nothing more than that”.

The FOMC’s own forecasts suggest that it will start to raise its rates more quickly than the markets believe. “With lift-off approaching, the views of FOMC’s participants surely take on much greater importance and, crucially to us, now appear realistic, given the underlying strength in the economy,” said Mr Lachowycz.

Janet Yellen, the Fed chairman, said this month: “The US economy hit a soft patch earlier this year… [but] despite the soft first quarter, the fundamentals underlying household spending appear favourable, and consumer sentiment remains solid.”

Markets less optimistic than the Fed that rates will rise by 2016

Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics, said: “There is a wide mix of evidence showing that, after a weak start to the year, the economy is booming again.”

Statisticians now believe that GDP barely moved in the first quarter,shrinking by 0.2pc at an annualised pace, stronger than a previous estimate of a 0.7pc decline. Analysts said that when the Bureau of Economic Analysis revisits the figure, it may find that GDP did not fall at all in the period.

The jobs market’s continued strength has seen US companies bumping up salaries in order to retain and attract staff.

“Most survey evidence, such as the rising proportion of small firms saying that labour quality is their biggest problem, points to a further acceleration in wage growth soon,” said Mr Ashworth.