U.S. economy adds 295K jobs; jobless rate down
The nation’s job market improved yet again in February, gaining 295,000 jobs while pushing the unemployment rate down to 5.5 percent, the Labor Department said Friday.
The government credited the jump in jobs to hiring in restaurants, business services, construction and health care, as well as transportation and warehousing.
The February gain in jobs represented a rebound from January, when the economy gained only 239,000 jobs after three consecutive months of gains of more than 300,000. The gain also surpassed the expectations of analysts polled by Yahoo Finance, who had predicted a gain of only 240,000.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate reached its lowest level since a reading of 5.4 percent in May 2008, nearly seven years ago.
But on the downside, the participation rate, which measures how many people are either employed or looking for work, fell slightly, to 62.8 percent. Critics have said that statistic tends to paint the unemployment rate as an inaccurate measure of the nation’s job market because it doesn’t count within it the number of “discouraged” workers who are not looking for jobs.
Also, the government said average hourly earnings rose only a paltry 0.1 percent in February. Although that was in line with forecasts, that statistic has opened up a debate about stagnant wage growth despite an improving job market.
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