Payrolls surge, bolster Fed rate hike prospects

The unemployment rate held steady at 4.9 percent, its lowest level since February 2008.

Recent reports have pointed to continued improvement.

The 242,000 gain followed a 172,000 rise in January that was larger than estimated, a Labour Department report showed yesterday. Already this year, more than half of the plant's roughly 900 workers have been laid off as the company, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, struggled through a plunge in aluminum prices, an electrical circuit failure in January that idled two of three production lines and other business issues.

Economists say the improved growth outlook, together with signs of inflation creeping up, could prompt the USA central bank to lift borrowing costs in June. The Federal Reserve wants to see wages grow move closer to 3.5%.

In total, hospitals have added 181,000 jobs over the past 12 months, according to the BLS.

The positives contained in the employment summary for February has analysts predicting that the Fed is on track to raise short-term interest rates in the summer. The Fed raised rates from record lows in December. While leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton can point to economic progress under her party's leadership, Republican front-runner Donald Trump may steer voters to focus on limited wage growth and companies moving operations overseas because of high corporate tax rates. In an economy that's been looking for good news, it's encouraging that the US economy has been adding jobs 72 months in a row.

Partly as a effect, average wages, which had begun to pick up healthily over the past few months, fell in February, as did average hours worked.

There is a risk, however, that payroll gains could come in below expectations after a survey on Thursday showed employment in the services sector fell in February for the first time in two years.

Construction-related firms, which also boosted payrolls last month, have been blaming a worker shortage for restraining their expansion.

Fed policymakers have been concerned that inflation remains low.

Year-on-year wages were up a modest 2.2 percent, when they had been trending at around 2.5 percent in previous months.

"Georgia employers continue to add jobs at a stronger pace than the national over-the-year job growth rate of 1.9 percent", said Butler.

Some of that is due to the recovery's unevenness, with fortunes diverging depending up where one lives, how high of an education one has, the skill level and industry one works in.

The employment-population ratio edged up to 59.8 percent during the month and the labor force participation rate edged up to 62.9 percent.

Other parts of the world - from China and India to Europe and Latin America - are suffering from slowing growth.

Mining shed a further 18,000 jobs after losing 9,000 positions in January.

And although Fed officials will be heartened by the return of solid job growth, the news on wages probably will give them pause, Hoffman said.