Hiring surge adds 313K jobs in February, most in 1 ½ years

abcnews/AP ^ | Christopher Rugaber

[RoosterRedux]

US employers went on a hiring binge last month, adding 313,000 jobs, the most since July 2016, and drawing hundreds of thousands of people into the job market.

The Labor Department says wage gains, meanwhile, fell from the previous month to 2.6 percent year-over-year growth. Strong hourly wage growth had spooked markets in February because it raised the specter of inflation. But January's figure was revised one-tenth of a point lower to 2.8 percent.

The influx of new workers kept the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1 percent.

[goldstategop]

More bad news for the fake news media, Democrats and Trump haters.

Choke on it.

[RoosterRedux]

Obama to Trump: 'What magic wand do you have?'

[ScottinVA]

Dems: “Not to worry - we can turn this around in November!”

[ealgeone]

WINNING!

[VanDeKoik]

“Obama’s economy still going strong!

Sorry if the truth hurts!!!”

-comment section on virtually all leftwing news sites

[Aaron0617]

These jobs numbers are just a deflection from the Stormy Daniels story /s

[NohSpinZone]

Good, private sector jobs, not government jobs like under Obummer.

[Rennes Templar]

Clueless.

[SoFloFreeper]

I blame the NRA!

[RayChuang88]

By the way, the Stormy Daniels story is falling apart fast because people are finding out she belongs in the gold digger category.

But getting back on topic, not being saddled with many of the Obama era regulations is literally saving the US economy.

[Red Badger]

W I N N I N G ! ! ! ! ! !..............M A G A !...................

[abb]

This was so... unexpected...

[SeekAndFind]

Here’s the inevitable question — WHAT IS THE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE? IS IT GOING UP OR NOT?

In other words, are those discouraged workers in the past now actively looking for work AND FINDING THEM? Or are they still on the sidelines?

The unemployment rate has been below 5% since Obama’s time. However, we kept harping on the Labor Force participation Rate. We ought to do the same now.

[SeekAndFind]

Where the jobs were, who's hiring and who isn't

[RoosterRedux]

IIRC roughly 800,000 people moved back into the workforce and this was the highest number since 1983 (heard this on Fox Business News this morning).

[SeekAndFind]

Some other notable changes:

• Manufacturing: +31K
• Healthcare: +9K
• Mining: +9K
• Financial Activities: +28K

Commenting on the data, SouthBay research noted the following:

• Construction: Much higher than expected. Homebuilders are hiring and the bottlenecks I saw did not show up in BLS data
• Manufacturing: Higher than expected. My data shows demand is strong but more moderate
• Financial: Higher than expected. More lending and sales agents

What was also quite notable was the sharp, +50,300 jump in retail jobs, which according to the BLS, have wiped out the doldrums from the recent bricks and mortar collapse, and are back to record high.

Southbay's summary: "Broad strength. Notable strength in the supply chain (manufacturing, transportation) and consumer (home construction, Lending, Retail, Leisure & Hospitality)"

Finally, as Bloomberg shows, below are the industries with the highest and lowest rates of employment growth for the most recent month: monthly growth rates are shown for the prior year.

[upchuck]

Hope the ER Drs stay especially busy attending to the RATS.

See tagline for self fulfilling prophesy.

MAGA/WINNING!!

[laplata]

I blame the NRA!

><><

That’s right. The NRA scared the employers into hiring them.

[SeekAndFind]