WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. job growth had been moving at breakneck speed and it was bound to slow down, White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said on Friday after U.S. employment figures increased less than expected in August.

"No question, that's a slower pace of job gains than we saw, but we were sustaining a breakneck pace that we knew was going to slow down," Bernstein said in an interview with MSNBC.

"I think the operative question here is, are we generating enough jobs to give people ample opportunities in the labor market to keep the unemployment rate from going up and to especially maintain those solid wage gains?"