Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press 

under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that 

the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Statement of 

William W. Beach 

Commissioner 

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Friday, March 6, 2020

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 273,000 in February, and 

the unemployment rate was little changed at 3.5 percent. Notable 

employment gains occurred in health care and social assistance, 

food services and drinking places, government, construction, 

professional and technical services, and financial activities.

Incorporating revisions for December and January, which 

increased payroll employment by 85,000, monthly job gains have 

averaged 243,000 over the past 3 months. 

Employment rose by 57,000 in health care and social 

assistance in February. Health care employment increased by 

32,000, with gains in offices of physicians (+10,000), home 

health care services (+10,000), and hospitals (+8,000). 

Employment in social assistance increased by 25,000, mostly 

within individual and family services (+18,000). Over the year, 
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employment has risen by 368,000 in health care and by 191,000 in 

social assistance. 

Employment in food services and drinking places increased 

by 53,000 in February. The industry has added 252,000 jobs over 

the past 7 months, after a lull in job growth earlier in 2019.

Government employment rose by 45,000 over the month, 

including an increase of 16,000 in state government education. 

Federal government employment increased by 8,000 in February, as 

7,000 temporary workers were hired for the 2020 Census.

Construction employment increased by 42,000 in February, 

following an increase of 49,000 in January. In 2019, the 

industry added an average of 13,000 jobs per month. In February, 

job gains occurred in specialty trade contractors (+26,000) and 

residential building (+10,000). 

Professional and technical services added 32,000 jobs in 

February and 285,000 jobs over the past 12 months. Over the 

month, job gains occurred in architectural and engineering 

services (+10,000) and in scientific research and development 

services (+5,000). Employment continued to trend up in computer 

systems design and related services (+8,000). 

Employment increased by 26,000 in financial activities over 

the month. Job gains occurred in real estate (+8,000) and in 

credit intermediation and related activities (+6,000). 
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Employment in other major industries--including mining, 

manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and 

warehousing, and information--showed little change in February. 

Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm 

payrolls rose by 9 cents in February to $28.52, following a gain 

of 6 cents in January. Over the past 12 months, average hourly 

earnings have risen by 3.0 percent; the over-the-year percent 

change has been 3.0 percent or above for 19 consecutive months. 

From January 2019 to January 2020, the Consumer Price Index for 

All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased by 2.5 percent (on a 

seasonally adjusted basis). 

The major labor market indicators from the survey of 

households continued to show little or no change in February. 

Both the unemployment rate, at 3.5 percent, and the number of 

unemployed people, at 5.8 million, remained little changed over 

the month. The unemployment rate has been either 3.5 percent or 

3.6 percent for the past 6 months. 

Among the unemployed, the number of people searching for 

work for 27 weeks or more was about unchanged at 1.1 million in 

February. These long-term unemployed accounted for 19.2 percent 

of the unemployed. 

The labor force participation rate remained at 63.4 percent 

in February. The employment-population ratio was little changed 
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at 61.1 percent but was up by 0.4 percentage point over the 

year. 

In February, 4.3 million people were working part time for 

economic reasons (also referred to as involuntary part-time 

workers), little changed from the previous month. 

Among those neither working nor looking for work in 

February, 1.4 million were considered marginally attached to the 

labor force, little changed over the month. (People who are 

marginally attached to the labor force had not looked for work 

in the 4 weeks prior to the survey but wanted a job, were 

available for work, and had looked for a job within the last 12 

months.) Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally 

attached who believed no jobs were available for them, numbered

405,000 in February, also little changed from a month earlier. 

Summarizing the labor market developments in February, 

nonfarm payroll employment rose by 273,000, and the unemployment 

rate was little changed at 3.5 percent.