U.S. economy added 275,000 jobs in February, unemployment was 3.9%

March 8 (UPI) -- The Labor Department said Friday 275,000 jobs were created in February, beating expectations of Wall Street economists, while unemployment was 3.9%.

Dow Jones economists were expecting Friday's jobs report to show 198,000 jobs created with unemployment holding steady at 3.7%. They foresaw a slowing of job creation in February compared with the robust 353,000 jobs added in January.

"Job gains occurred in health care, in government, in food services and drinking places, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing," the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a statement. "The unemployment rate rose by 0.2% to 3.9% in February, and the number of unemployed people increased by 334,000 to 6.5 million."

That's above the average monthly job gain of 230,000 over the past 12 months. The Labor Department revised December job gains down by 43,000 to 290,000.

January's jobs numbers were revised down by 124,000 to 229,000.

Health care added 67,000 jobs and government added 52,000 in February.

Food services jobs were up by 42,000, social assistance added 24,000 and jobs in transportation and warehousing increased by 20,000.

ZipRecruiter's chief economist Julia Pollak described the current job market as employers using cautious approaches to hire in line with business activity, but not for growth and expansion.

"Many businesses still report higher than expected sales. But they're not aggressively hiring for growth and to expand. For that, many are still taking a wait-and-see approach," Pollak said.

The private payroll company ADP measures private sector jobs created based on their payroll clients' reporting. According to ADP there were 140,000 private sector jobs added in February.

ADP's number was higher than the 107,000 private sector jobs created in January, but lower than the Dow Jones estimate of 150,000 private February jobs.

January's total job creation was 353,000 with an unemployment rate of 3.7%, according to the Labor Department.

Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su said that January continued a two-year trend of joblessness under 4%, the longest stretch in more than 50 years, with a strong jobs report.

February's numbers extended that trend of keeping unemployment below 4%.