Despite the fact the economy added 227,000 jobs in February, the unemployment rate remained stuck at 8.3 percent, according to figures released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The private sector grew by 233,000 jobs, while the public sector continued to shrink, although marginally. We're pretty much in a holding pattern in most areas: the total number of unemployed (12.8 million), number of long-term unemployed (5.4 million) and number of people employed part-time involuntarily (8.1 million) were all more or less unchanged.
So the 227,000 new jobs were just enough to keep up with increases in the population of the work force. Where did those jobs come from? The professional and business services sector added 82,000 jobs, although 45,000 of those were in temporary help services, which isn't a good sign. Health care and social assistance added 61,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality added 44,000, and manufacturing added 31,000. The food and drink industry, which is a subsector of leisure and hospitality, continued to be very strong, with 41,000 new jobs created in February.
Very few job sectors suffered losses of that magnitude. The biggest losers for February were construction, which lost 14,000 jobs, and, surprisingly enough, general merchandise stores, i.e., Target and Wal-Mart. That group dropped 35,000 jobs on the month.
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