US employers stepped up hiring in February and the jobless rate fell to a more than 6-1/2-year low of 5.5 percent, which could put pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in June.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 295,000 last month after rising 239,000 in January, the Labor Department said on Friday. The broad job gains came despite disruptive weather conditions that took hold across large parts of the country in mid-February.

The decline in the unemployment rate from 5.7 percent in January took it to its lowest level since May 2008 and into territory that some Fed officials consider consistent with full employment.

"The labor market is on a roll. This should ease fears at the Fed that the global downturn and sharp drop in oil prices are materially disrupting the U.S. economic outlook, and keep the Fed firmly on course for a June lift-off," said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco.

The decline in the unemployment rate, however, largely reflected people dropping out of the labor force.

But economists, who had expected payrolls to rise only 240,000 and the unemployment rate to fall to 5.6 percent, noted that other indicators monitored by the U.S. central bank showed a rapidly tightening labor market.

February marked the 12th straight month that employment gains have been above 200,000, the longest such run since 1994.