Employment up by 678,000 in February

The unemployment rate edged down to 3.8% and 678,000 new jobs were added beating Wall Street’s expectations in February, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The total number of unemployed people was 6.3 million compared to 5.7 million in February 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Particularly strong gains in employment were among adult men and Hispanics.

The largest gains in employment were in the leisure and hospitality industry, which grew by 179,000 jobs, followed by professional services with a gain of 95,000 and health care by 64,000.

The jobless rate for adult women was 3.6% and for men was 3.5%. The jobless rate for Asians was 3.1%, for Whites was 3.3% for Hispanics was 4.4% and for Blacks  was 6.6%.