US jobs report beats negative expectations 2:10
(CNN) ––
The US economy added 678,000 jobs in February, beating economists' expectations.
In addition, the unemployment rate fell to 3.8%, a new pandemic-era low, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Pundits had anticipated solid job growth in February, after the previous month the US saw a light at the end of the tunnel of the wave that unleashed the omicron variant.
Infections fell rapidly, and several cities announced changes to their pandemic restrictions.
That should have been good news for jobs.
So economists surveyed by Refinitiv pointed to a forecast of 400,000 jobs in February.
US economy adds 467,000 jobs in January and beats gloomy expectations
At the beginning of 2022, projections about employment were widely wrong.
The labor market performed much better than expected in January.
Although some economists anticipated a negative jobs figure for that month, the United States ended up adding 467,000 jobs and far exceeded the established consensus of 150,000.
This is one of the reasons people in the US hate this economy, despite low unemployment: the return of the Misery Index
Why so much difference between the January report and the predictions?
The consequences of the omicron variant were not as serious as expected.
And historical seasonal patterns did not have the expected effect, as companies continued to struggle with labor shortages.
"The pre-Covid-19 seasonal patterns no longer seem to be holding," Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, said after the January report.
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