A Strong Jobs Report

This morning brought us the best employment report we've seen in a while: The economy added 236,000 jobs in February, and the headline unemployment figure moved down from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent. The economy has now added an average of more than 200,000 jobs over the past four months.

The industries adding the most jobs in February:

• Professional and business services added 73,000 jobs.
• Construction added 48,000 jobs, and has now added a total of 151,000 jobs since September.
• Health care was up by 32,000 jobs, including 14,000 new jobs in ambulatory health care, which means mostly outpatient clinics and doctors' offices.
• Retail added 24,000 jobs, and has added more than 250,000 jobs in the past 12 months.
• And the information industry added 20,000 jobs, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics noting that there were significant gains in the movie and recording industries.