February Employment and Unemployment: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report today on payroll employment and unemployment for February (pdf summary available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf). Highlights of the report:

Unemployment Rate

• The unemployment rate held steady at 8.3% in February. 
• The number of long-term unemployed (those unemployed for 27 weeks or longer) was little changed at 5.4 million in February.  The percent of long-term unemployed edged down to 42.6% in February, from 42.9% in January. 
• The labor force increased by 476,000 in February, following an increase of 508,000 in January.  The labor force participation rate edged up to 63.9% in February, from 63.7% in January. 
• The number of unemployed persons was little changed at 12.8 million in February.

Payroll Employment

• Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 227,000 in February, following gains of 284,000 in January (revised upwards from 243,000) and 223,000 in December (revised upwards from 203,000). 
  • Private sector employment rose by 233,000 while government employment fell by 6,000.
  • The largest private sector employment gains came from professional and business services (+82,000), healthcare and social assistance (+61,000), leisure and hospitality (+44,000), manufacturing (+31,000), and mining (+7,000). 
  • The average workweek for all private nonfarm employees was unchanged at 34.5 hours.