February Jobs Report: +236K

The Labor Department just reported that the economy created 236,000 new jobs last month. The unemployment rate dropped to 7.7%.

Looking at the details, private sector payrolls rose by 246,000 last month. Wall Street had been expecting a gain of 170,000. Revisions were a mixed bag: December NFP was revised higher by 23,000 but January was knocked back by 38,000.

Overall, this was a very good report. The U.S. economy has now gained back 5.726 million of the 8.736 million jobs lost, or nearly two-thirds.

Here’s the NFP chart:

Here’s the unemployment rate:

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on March 8th, 2013 at 8:33 am

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