U.S. unemployment rate declines to 4.5 percent in February

The U.S. unemployment rate declined to 4.5 percent in February even as employers slowed their new hiring pace, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The report showed that employers added only 97,000 new jobs to their payrolls in February, the fewest in two years.

The weak monthly performance was attributed to the construction industry, which slashed 62,000 jobs in February because of bad weather, and the manufacturing sector, which continued to cut jobs as a result of troubled housing and auto industries.

However, job gain in December and January turned out to be stronger than initially estimated, with 226,000 and 146,000 new jobs being created respectively.

American workers' average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent to 17.16 dollars in February. The gain was slightly faster than the 0. 3 percent rise expected by analysts.

Over the 12 months ending in February, wages grew by 4.1 percent.

Wages account for two-thirds of a company's production costs. While wage growth should help keep consumers spending, a contributor to overall economic health, mounting wage pressures could trigger a rise in inflation.

Before the report was released, analysts had been forecasting a job gain of around 100,000 and an unemployment rate of 4.6 percent for February. The unemployment rate was 4.6 percent in January.

The latest snapshot of new jobs and unemployment rate suggested that the labor market was still in good shape, according to analysts.

Source: Xinhua