There were 163,000 more jobs on public and private payrolls last month, but the nation's unemployment rate edged up to 8.3 percent.

The jobs gain was the best in five months and was much better than the revised estimated of growth for June — a gain of just 64,000 jobs. But it wasn't good enough to keep the jobless rate from rising slightly. In June, it stood at 8.2 percent.