Feds say 295,000 jobs added in February

Friday’s jobs report showed the U.S. economy has managed a yearlong streak of strong job growth — even while American workers’ wages have remained stubbornly flat.

The economy added 295,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday, up from January’s increase of 239,000 jobs. Unemployment was 5.5 percent, down from 5.7 percent in January, and average hourly private-sector earnings were up 3 cents, down from a 12-cents increase the month earlier.


Analysts had predicted the creation of about 230,000 jobs, an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent, and an increase in hourly earnings of 0.2 percent, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.

The acceleration in job growth followed a slowdown in the gross domestic product during 2014’s fourth quarter to 2.2 percent, compared with an impressive 5 percent in the third quarter.

“With another strong employment report, we have now seen 12 straight months of private-sector job gains above 200,000 — the first time that has happened since 1977,” said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, in a blog post. “Moreover, 2014 was the best year for job growth since the late 1990s, and 2015 has continued at this pace.”

While economists welcomed the jobs growth and unemployment rate decline, the data show wages haven’t tracked with job gains. The paltry 3-cents boost in hourly wages, following January’s 12-cents boost, will likely halt speculation that the labor market is tightening in any significant way, though Wal-Mart’s recent decision to boost its hourly minimum to $10 likely reflected a tightening among minimum-wage workers, possibly attributable to a spate of state-level minimum-wage increases.

“Doughnuts look good. Doughnuts even taste good,” conservative economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote today. “But doughnuts have a hole in the middle and really can’t nourish you. The February employment report is a doughnut.”

Republicans welcomed the strong job growth but used the jobs report to attack President Barack Obama’s tax policy and refusal to green light the Keystone pipeline.

“While it is welcome news that more Americans found work last month, middle-class families continue to be left behind by the president’s policies,” House Speaker John Boehner said. “By vetoing the Keystone pipeline, the president put his political agenda ahead of the more than 42,000 workers who would have a shot at a good-paying job.”

The Federal Reserve closely watches the unemployment rate as it considers raising rock-bottom interest rates later this year. But some economists say the Fed should not raise rates until wage growth picks up and the slack in the labor market tightens further.

“Wages need to grow faster and for a longer time before we can say the economy is truly working for working people and before the Federal Reserve should think about tapping the brakes,” the liberal Economic Policy Institute said in a statement.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez, meanwhile, celebrated Friday’s jobs numbers while saying they shouldn’t prompt the federal government to “take a victory lap or spike the football.”

Perez said more infrastructure investments and workforce training programs are necessary to accelerate economic growth.

“We’re doing very well, but we can do even better, especially with so many working families still not being lifted by the rising tide,” he said.

Ben White contributed to this report.