The American economy appeared to emerge from a winter hibernation in February, creating more jobs than in either of the previous two months and suggesting that momentum in the labor market might gradually build with the arrival of spring.

While analysts cautioned that the report on Friday from the Labor Department was hardly cause for celebration, it eased fears of another prolonged slowdown, which had been raised by weak figures for hiring in December and January and mixed signals from recent releases of other data. The improvement last month led some experts to conclude that a hard winter, not a fundamental downshift, was the prime mover behind the economy’s lackluster performance at the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014.

With employers hiring 175,000 workers, the payroll gain in February was still well short of the pace needed to return the economy to full employment anytime soon or to quickly reduce the ranks of the long-term unemployed. But it was twice the number of jobs added in December, when the cold and snow arrived, and it came against a backdrop of more wintry weather last month.

“The report showed solid job growth in February despite clearly negative effects from the weather,” said Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays. “It suggests the jobs numbers should improve as the weather gets better.”