http://thehill.com/policy/finance/234835-economy-adds-295k-jobs-in-februaryBy Vicki Needham - 03/06/15 08:46 AM EST
Employers added a better-than-expected 295,000 jobs in February as the unemployment rate edged down to 5.5 percent, the lowest level in nearly seven years, according to numbers out Friday.
Unemployment hit a high of 10 percent in October 2009, and the current level is the lowest since May 2008.
The labor market appears to have maintained its strength through severe winter weather, although January’s jobs growth was slower than initially reported, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.
December’s figures remained unchanged at 329,000 while January’s revised numbers showed a drop of 18,000 to 239,000.
Jobs growth averaged 288,000 over the past three months.
The economy added more than 3 million jobs in 2014, 972,000 of those in the final three months of the year.
Wage growth grew by 0.1 percent last month and is up 2 percent over the past year, but economists expect to see stronger growth as the labor market tightens over the next year.
The economy has added 200,000 jobs a month for the past 12, the best streak since the mid-1990s.
Construction added 29,000 jobs in February, a sign that bad weather didn’t affect the report too much, while manufacturing added 8,000 jobs.
Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics, said on Twitter that regardless of the number, February payrolls have been revised up in each of the last five years by an average of 47,000.
A separate report on Wednesday showed that unemployment fell in every state — the first time that has happened since 1984, the Labor Department reported.
A separate ADP employment report on Wednesday showed that private-sector employers added 212,000 jobs in February, a slow down likely reflecting a spate of severe winter weather.
Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Analytics, said the labor market’s underlying trend is for growth of about 250,000 jobs a month, keeping the economy on track for another 3 million jobs this year.
Overall, the economy is expected to return to normal employment by mid-2016, he said.
"It takes a lot to derail the momentum that currently exists in the labor market," he said.
