The unemployment rate held steady in February after the Labor Department released better-than-expected jobs loss numbers for the month, leading some to speculate that the economy could soon start creating jobs each month.
The unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent in February after the Labor Department announced the economy shed 36,000 jobs for the month. While still worrisome, the number of jobs lost in February was much better than the 67,000 jobs expected to be shed during the month, but worse than January when just 26,000 jobs were lost, according to the Labor Department.
What’s more, many experts believe that the numbers would have been even better had it not been for record-setting snow storms across much of the country that kept a countless number of job seekers at home for a large portion of the month.
After an outstanding month of January, in which 20,000 jobs were created, the manufacturing sector was hit hard by the winter storms in February. Just 1,000 manufacturing jobs were created during the month, according to the report.
By far the worst hit sector of the economy, however, was construction. Winter weather brought many projects to a standstill and resulted in 64,000 jobs in the sector being cut during the month. The unemployment rate in the sector is currently at 27.1 percent, higher than any other sector of the economy.
"Although the labor market remains severely distressed, today’s report on the employment situation is consistent with the pattern of stabilization and gradual labor market healing we have been seeing in recent months," said White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman Christina Romer in a blog posted Friday.
But many believe that the economy will remain mired in high unemployment and volatility in the job market for years. The economy needs to create over 100,000 jobs each month simply to keep up with people entering the workforce. Finding jobs for the nearly 15 million Americans that are currently unemployed is a whole other matter that won’t be solved anytime soon.
“Mother Nature is a force to be reckoned with, but it’s the blizzard of higher taxes, wasteful spending and reckless borrowing coming out of Washington that’s destroying jobs in this country," said House Republican leader John Boehner (R-OH). "President Obama and Democratic leaders will come out of the woodwork today armed with rehashed promises to do better, but their top and seemingly only priority remains this unpopular, unaffordable government takeover of health care."