The US saw a notable addition of 275,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in February, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.
Although this figure fell short of January’s 353,000 job gains, it exceeded expectations set by analysts.
Analysts’ estimates, according to the LSEG consensus, were for the creation of 200,000 jobs in the month.
The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5% for the third consecutive month.
The unemployment rate saw a slight uptick of 0.2 percentage points, reaching 3.9% in February, with the total number of unemployed individuals rising by 334,000 to 6.5 million.
Meanwhile, the average hourly wage for employees in private nonfarm sectors increased by 5 cents, reaching $34.57, marking a 0.1% rise from January and a 4.3% year-over-year increase from February 2023.
Additionally, the average workweek for these employees slightly increased by 0.1 hours, averaging 34.3 hours.