Private sector employers added 654,000 in February after adding 448,000 in January; a year ago the private sector added 693,000 in February 2021.

The private Goods-producing sector added 105,000 jobs in February after gaining 24,000 in January, which was preliminary reported last month as a 4,000 increase.

• Manufacturing growth gained 36,000 in February after adding 16,000 in January.

• The Construction sector was up 60,000 in February after adding 7,000 in January, which was initially reported as down 5,000 in last month's BLS employment report. 

• Mining and logging was up 9,000 in February after adding 1,000 in January, which as first reported as down 4,000.

The private Service-providing sector was consistent with a gain of 549,000 in February and that was an improvement from the 424,000 the sector added in January.

• Hiring activity slowed in the Retail trade sector that added 36,900 jobs in February after increasing by 69,200 in January.

• The Wholesale trade sector regained some traction with an increase of 18,300 in February after adding 12,300 in January.

• Transportation and warehousing continued to add jobs at only a slightly slower pace with an increase of 47,600 in February compared to the 51,100 it added in January.

• Financial activities crushed it with a gain of 35,000 jobs in February after adding 3,000 in January.

• The Professional and business services sector picked up some momentum with an increase of 95,000 in February after adding 73,000 in January. Computer systems design and related services computed in only 4,500 more jobs in February after adding 8,200 in January. Management and technical consulting services added 9,500 jobs in February that followed an increase of 10,800 in January.. Architectural and engineering services gained 4,400 jobs in February, which followed a 8,700 increase in January.

• The entire private Education and health services sector was up 112,000 in February. Hiring managers must have been really feeling the heat at Home health care services by hiring at a feverish pitch by adding 19,700 jobs in February after eliminating 1,500 jobs in January..

• The entire Leisure and hospitality sector was up 179,000 in February after adding 167,000 in January.

The total number of Government jobs was up 24,000 in February. The Federal government was flat, state government was up by 3,000, and local government increased a total of 21,000 jobs with much of that increase in education.

The unemployment rate declined to 3.8 percent in February from 4.0 percent in January. The last time it was this low was right before the pandemic hit two years ago.

In February, there were 548,000 more employed persons and 243,000 fewer unemployed persons than in January. Since the labor force only expanded by 304,000, the unemployment rate declined. But perhaps more interesting and significant was that those not in the labor force declined by 183,000 that could mean that some people who left the labor force are coming back to join the party..

Both the labor force participation rate inched up 0.1 to 62.3 and the employment-population ratio also increased by 0.2 to 59.9.

We will continue to maintain an updated table of many major employment as well as other general economic indicators here or here for the mobile version.