Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Laurel Brishel Prichard
University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

According to statistics released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), the nation's official unemployment rate remained at 9.7% in February. The BLS estimates that 14.9 million Americans are currently out of work.

The U6 rate, often referred to as the "real" unemployment rate because it combines the total number of unemployed plus the number of people working part time for economic reasons, rose to 16.8 percent, up from 16.5% in January.

The areas of the economy hit hardest last month were construction, with 64,000 jobs lost, and the information industry, with 18,000 jobs lost.

In a sign that businesses are still wary of conducting full-time hiring, temporary help services received an influx of 48,000 jobs in February. 284,000 temp jobs have been added in the U.S. since September of 2009.

Although the major winter storms that hit much of the East Coast last month have been cited by some as contributing to the not-so-great numbers, the BLS says there is no way to tell exactly how badly the storms impacted the job sector. Individuals that missed work as a result of the winter weather were counted as employed regardless of whether or not they were paid.

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