Nonfarm Jobs Rise By 379K As Economy Shows Renewed Growth

With a bit of wind at its back — in the form of December’s $900 billion U.S. stimulus package — the economy took a step toward a pandemic recovery in February. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday (March 5) that total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 379,000 last month.

The encouraging BLS Employment Situation report noted, however, that “the labor market continued to reflect the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.” In February, most of the job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, an area hard-hit by the COVID-19 crisis. The labor market showed smaller gains in temporary help services, healthcare and social assistance, retail trade and manufacturing. Employment declined in state and local government education, construction and mining.

The unemployment rate was little changed at 6.2 percent, the U.S. report said. The BLS updated its numbers for December to show a bigger loss, now totaling 306,000 jobs, and for January to show a larger gain, now totaling 166,000 jobs.

The number of jobs added beat economists’ estimates, which had predicted a seasonally adjusted 210,000 would be added in February, The Wall Street Journal reported. The good news comes against the backdrop of the nearly 10 million jobs still lost to the pandemic economic crisis.

The U.S. report, which covers both private and public sectors, showed more improvement than the ADP National Employment Report for February. That survey, which only covers the private sector, said that jobs were up 117,000. “The labor market continues to post a sluggish recovery across the board,” Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP, said in a press release on Wednesday (March 3).

New jobless claims for the week ending Feb. 27 came in at 745,000, up from the previous week’s revised level of 736,000, according to the Thursday (March 4) weekly BLS report.

Friday’s BLS employment report said that “the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 4.1 million, changed little over the month. … In February, these long-term unemployed accounted for 41.5 percent of the total unemployed.”

In addition, 13.3 million people said they had been unable to work or did not get their usual number of hours because their employer had closed or lost business due to the pandemic.

The BLS said that “in February, employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 355,000, as pandemic-related restrictions eased in some parts of the country. About four-fifths of the increase was in food services and drinking places,” which saw an increase of 286,000 jobs. While temporary help services did add 53,000 jobs in February, the number of jobs is down by 175,000 from a year ago.