While the headline payroll print of 313K was impressive, a look under the cover reveals even stronger data: first, the Household Survey showed that a whopping 785K jobs were added in February, while the number of unemployed Americans rose by only 22K, and with the labor force rising by 806K, this explains why the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.1%.
But what is even more notable is that when looking at the breakdown of job additions, one finds that in February, a near record 729K full-time jobs were added, the biggest monthly increase since last September’s 794K…
… while at the same time, an additional 277K part-time jobs were added to the economy.
What is curious is that while historically strong full-time months had been offset by weak part-time, and vice versa, February was an outlier, with both categories showing major gains. In fact, the combined gain of 1,006,000 full and part time jobs, was the biggest monthly gain this century.
