Temp and Food Service Jobs Keep Unemployment Rate at 8.3 Percent

Submitted by Kevin Derby on March 9, 2012 - 9:14am

The Department of Labor Statistics unveiled the latest national unemployment figures on Friday and, while there were an additional 227,000 non-farm jobs added to the economy in February, the unemployment rate remained unchanged -- 8.3 percent. There remain almost 13 million unemployed in the United States.

But look deeper. The numbers produced on Friday are not exactly reassuring.

The Department noted that professional and business services added 82,000 jobs in February but there is one huge caveat: just over half of the increase occurred in temporary help services of which there were more than 45,000 jobs. Add to this more than 41,000 jobs in food services and drinking places and a loss of 14,000 contracting jobs and 35,000 retail jobs. There are also 8.1 million workers in part-time jobs.

There were some bright spots, including more than 61,000 jobs in health care, 31,000 in manufacturing and 7,000 in mining.

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