Unemployment Rate Drops to 5.5% as 295K Jobs Added in February
Published at(WASHINGTON) — U.S. employers added 295,000 jobs to their payrolls in February, marking the 12th straight month with job gains above 200,000, the Labor Department reported Friday morning.
The figure exceeded economists’ expectations, who predicted about 240,000 jobs were added last month.
The unemployment rate also beat expectations, falling from 5.7 percent to 5.5 percent.
Jobs were added in food services, construction and healthcare, the report shows.
In a bit of bad news, the report finds that the total in January was revised to show that 18,000 fewer jobs were added that month.
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