WASHINGTON — The April rebound in payrolls keeps the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates in September, economists and investors said, while a June move looks increasingly remote.

“Job growth is obviously solid, unemployment moved down a smidge,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase in New York and a former Fed board economist. He maintained his forecast for liftoff in September and said “the hurdle for June is really high,” because wage growth was weak and payroll gains in March were revised lower.

Employers added 223,000 workers to payrolls in April after a bigger setback in March than was previously estimated, Labor Department data showed Friday, in a sign of corporate confidence in the economy after a soft first quarter. The unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent.

Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and her colleagues are watching the labor market for signs that it can sustain higher borrowing costs as they weigh when to lift the main interest rate from near zero for the first time since December 2008. The first rise will be in September, according to 73 percent of 59 economists in a Bloomberg survey conducted April 22-24.

“The June rate-hike option now looks dead and buried,” even if the next report shows stronger momentum, Rob Carnell, chief international economist at ING Groep NV in London, wrote in note. The report isn’t the “strong labor market release that could have put a June rate hike back on the table.”

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