Though jobs growth last month was below the 212,000-per-month pace of the year, payroll figures for June and July were revised upward by a combined 44,000 positions.
The September pace of borrowing is close to the monthly average for the last five years of $7.7 billion.
The July pace of housing starts was well above the monthly average for the year's first half.
December's sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000 from an upwardly revised November pace of 370,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
The 6.47 million resales of single-family homes at an annual rate came after a July pace of 6.13 million, the National Association of Realtors said in Washington.
The June pace of new-home sales was the slowest since an annual rate of 793,000 units in December 1997, the data showed.
"I was surprised that the jobs reports and the January pace of job creation was running under what I had anticipated, but we have to be very careful about jumping to conclusions about what those reports mean," Yellen says.
Yellen said she was "surprised that the jobs reports and the January pace of job creation was running under what I had anticipated, but we have to be very careful about jumping to conclusions about what those reports mean".
Over the past year, employers have added nearly 3.3 million jobs, the fastest 12-month pace of hiring since 1998.
From August through October the pace of negotiation was frenetic.
"I was surprised that the jobs reports in December and January, the pace of job creation, was running under what I had anticipated.
