According to a government report, Job losses were mild in February despite extreme snowstorms in much of the country. The labor market remained weak.
The Labor Department said the economy lost 36,000 jobs in the month, fewer than the 68,000 jobs economists were expecting & the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7% according to a survey conducted by Briefing.com.
The biggest effect was most likely borne by the construction industry, which dropped 64,000 jobs last month.
Construction continued to be one of the worst-hit sectors, cutting 64,000 jobs in February. Unemployment in the construction industry rose to a rate of 27.1%, up from 24.7% in the previous month and by far the highest rate of any sector.
Bureau of Labor Statistics said it was “not possible to quantify precisely the net impact of the winter storms,” suggesting it may adjust its figures later.
John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., said the Chicago outplacement company’s own tracking of planned U.S. job cuts in February “showed the fewest planned layoff announcements since 2006. This is a strong indication that employers are turning from a downsizing strategy to one focused on work force stabilization and eventually job creation.”
According to Stephen Wood, chief market strategist at Russell Investments. Signs of stabilization are encouraging, and certainly better than the steep declines reported last year but “marked improvement is still a ways off,” Wood told Forbes, as winter storms and other seasonality issues affect recent data.
Citi analyst Steven C. Wieting warned that winter weather clouded jobs data and that “it will take several weeks before an underlying trend can be confidently judged.”
Christina Romer, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said that while the labor market “remains severely distressed. She noted in a statement that the number of workers unemployed for more than 26 weeks fell by 180,000, “the first decline in over a year.”
she agreed with analysts that the unemployment rate still “unacceptably high,” Romer said, “it is essential that Congress pass additional responsible measures to promote job creation” and that “we continue to support those struggling with unemployment.”