Investors yawned at a surprisingly strong uptick in December payrolls — perhaps realizing the tortoise-like pace of the US recovery meant it would take another three years to gain back all the jobs lost in the recession.

Still, most economists cheered yesterday’s report from the Labor Department that 200,000 jobs were created last month — and that the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, the lowest level in nearly three years.

“This is welcome news (but) the payroll head count won’t return to its previous cyclical peak level until 2015, at the current trajectory,” said chief economist Neal Soss of Credit Suisse.

Stocks were little changed. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.5 percent to 12,359.92, while the S&P 500 Index slipped a quarter of one percent to 1,277.81. The Nasdaq rose slightly to 2,674.22.

Overall in 2011, private payrolls gained 1.6 million jobs, while December signaled a slowdown in worrisome government layoffs. Government firings were flat in December, capping off a year of 280,000 layoffs at various departments that historically have employed one of every four Americans.

Some 13.1 million Americans are unemployed, with 42.5 percent of them still out of work for longer than seven months. In all, 140.8 million Americans hold jobs, or about 58 percent of the adult population.

December’s biggest job gains were 50,000 in transportation and warehousing, followed by 42,000 in courier services, due to added shipping from online holiday shopping, said Soss.