New jobs report shows signs of life

By Steve Benen

In advance of the last two monthly job reports, expectations were high, making the underwhelming totals that much more disappointing. Today’s announcement was a more pleasant reversal – job creation exceeded modest expectations.

The new report from Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs in February, beating economists’ predictions. The unemployment rate inched higher to 6.7%, though as we’ve discussed many times, that’s not the metric to watch.

In a rare occurrence, public-sector layoffs did not drag down the overall employment figures. Though most months in recent years have shown monthly government job losses, in February, the private sector added 162,000 while the public sector added an unusually high 13,000...the job totals for both December and January were both revised up a little, pointing to an additional 25,000 jobs that had been previously unreported.

All told, over the last 12 months, the U.S. economy has added over 2.15 million jobs overall and 2.19 million in the private sector. What’s more, February was the 48th consecutive month in which we’ve seen private-sector job growth.

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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/new-jobs-report-shows-signs-life

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The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised from +75,000 to +84,000, and the change for January was revised from +113,000 to +129,000. With these revisions, employment gains in December and January were 25,000 higher than previously reported.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm