5 key takeaways from the February US jobs report

By PAUL WISEMAN
AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The American job market has once again confounded expectations. The nation’s employers added a hefty 311,000 jobs last month, easily surpassing the 208,000 gain that forecasters had expected. The latest evidence that businesses’ demand for workers is still robust complicates things for the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve: They want to see clear signs that the economy and the job market are cooling off before they would consider easing up on their interest rate hikes. Still, the unemployment rate ticked up in February, and hourly wages rose only modestly from January. Those trends, if sustained, could help reassure the Fed that inflation will ease.