Unemployment Rate Holds at 8.3%; Trucking Adds 10,000 Jobs

The U.S. unemployment rate held at 8.3% in February, and trucking added more than 10,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday.

The unemployment rate matched previous month’s level and a tied a three-year low set in February 2009.

The economy added 2227,000 jobs, following a revised 284,000 in January that was more than previously reported.

The transportation sector, of which trucking is a part, added 10,600 jobs.

The unemployment rate held despite the increase in jobs because of an influx of people looking for work, news reports said. 

Job growth in the past six months was the strongest since 2006, Bloomberg reported.

Economists had projected that the unemployment rate would hold at 8.3%, while the jobs gain topped the 210,000 forecast, Bloomberg said.

The payroll and unemployment figures are obtained by separate surveys, with payrolls from a survey of employers and the unemployment rate from a survey of households.