Unemployment Holds at 8.3% – Jobs Recession Longest Since World War II …Update: Economy Still Down 6 million jobs

The unemployment rate held at 8.3% in February making Obama the Worst Jobs President since the Great Depression.

Misery Index

The current jobs recession is now the longest since World War II.

Reuters reported on today’s news.

Employers added 227,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, while the unemployment rate held at a three-year low of 8.3 percent.

It marked the first time since early 2011 that payrolls have grown by more than 200,000 for three months in a row – bolstering President Barack Obama’s chances for re-election.

The economy created 61,000 more jobs in December and January than previously thought, and the jobless rate held steady even as more people returned to the labor force.

Although the job market is gaining some muscle, the pace of improvement remains too slow to do much to absorb the 23.5 million Americans who are either out of work or underemployed.

Fed Chairman Bernanke last week described the labor market as “far from normal” and said continued improvement would require stronger demand for U.S. goods and services.

Zero Hedge had more on today’s numbers.

NFP 227,000 on expectations of 210,000; Previous revised from 243K to 284K; Unemployment Rate (U-3% ) at 8.3% , U-6 at 14.9% . While for the first time in a long time those not in the labor force declined (from 87,874 to 87,564) and the participation rate rose as a result from 63.7% to 63.9% , here is what the market is focusing on currently: “Professional and business services added 82,000 jobs in February. Just over half of the increase occurred in temporary help services (+45,000).”


Average duration of unemployment steady at 40.0 weeks, via John Lohman and Zero Hedge.

UPDATE: The economy is still down 6 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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