With the addition of 242,000 new full- and part-time seasonally adjusted jobs in February, the U.S. economy has now seen job growth in the private sector for 72 straight months, the longest such streak in history. (If one month of decline is excluded, there were 85 months of private-sector growth during the Reagan administration.)
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the total comprised 230,000 new jobs created in the private sector while government added 12,000.
The official unemployment rate, U3 in bureau jargon, remained unchanged at 4.9 percent, its lowest level since February 2008. The BLS calculated the number of unemployed in February at 7.8 million, the same as January.
New job counts for December were revised from 262,000 to 271,000. The January count was revised from 151,000 to 172,000.
The civilian workforce in February rose by 555,000, after having risen by 502,000 in January. The employment-population ratio climbed 0.2 to 59.8 percent, and the labor force participation rate also rose 0.2, to 62.9 percent.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that wages for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls fell 3 cents an hour in February to $25.35 after rising 12 cents an hour in January. And private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees saw their paychecks remain flat at $21.32 an hour.
A report issued last month on union membership shows just how much of a difference unions make in the economic lives of their members. Median weekly earnings of full-time union workers for 2015 were $975, more than 25 percent higher than the $776 median non-union workers earned. Add that difference up and it comes to $10,452 a year.
In addition to the official “headline” rate of unemployment rate (U3), the bureau also estimates both unemployment and underemployment in a category it calls U6. This counts people with no job, part-time workers who want a full-time job but can't find one, and a portion of the nation’s "discouraged" workers. In February, U6 fell to 9.7 percent in February, from 9.9 percent in January.
The bureau’s "confidence level" each month is plus or minus 105,000 jobs. This means the "real" number of new jobs created in February was not 242,000 but ranged between 137,000 and 347,000.
Each month the bureau also includes a count for Americans aged 25-54. A person in this “prime working age” cohort is the most likely of any age group either to have a job or be looking for one. The employment-population ratio for the 25-54 age group reached its all-time high of 81.9 percent in April 2000. By December 2007, when the Great Recession begin, that ratio was 79.7 percent. It hit bottom at 74.8 percent in November 2010. The rate has been rising slowly since then, and in January it climbed to 77.7 percent. The BLS announced Friday that it rose again in February, this time to 77.8 percent.
Additional key aspects of the February job report:
Unemployment Rate by Age/Sex/Race/Ethnicity
Teenagers: 15.6%
Adult men: 4.5%
Adult women: 4.5%
Whites: 4.3%
Blacks: 8.8%
Asians: 3.8%
Hispanics: 5.4%
American Indians: (not counted monthly)
Hours & Wages
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees remained flat at $21.32 in February, after having risen 6 cents in January.
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls remained fell to 34.4 hours in February.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls fell 3 cents an hour in February to $25.35.
• The manufacturing workweek was unchanged at 40.8 hours.
• The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls slipped to 33.87 hours.
Job gains and losses in February for selected categories:
• Professional services: + 23,000
• Transportation & warehousing : - 5,300
• Leisure & hospitality: + 48,000
• Information: + 12,000
• Health care & social assistance: + 57,400
• Retail trade: + 54,900
• Construction: + 19,000
• Manufacturing: -16,000
• Mining and Logging: - 18,000
Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in February for the previous 10 years compared with today’s gain of 242,000.
February 2006: + 316,000
February 2007: + 90,000
February 2008: - 86,000
February 2009: - 703,000
February 2010: - 69,000
February 2011: + 188,000
February 2012: + 257,000
February 2013: + 311,000
February 2014: + 168,000
February 2015: + 265,000
