Unemployment rate unchanged as 36K jobs lost

WASHINGTON (AP) — The unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent in February as employers shed fewer jobs than expected, evidence that the job market may be slowly healing.

The Labor Department said today employers cut 36,000 jobs, below analysts' expectations of 50,000. Analysts expected the jobless rate to rise to 9.8 percent.

The severe snowstorms that hammered the East Coast last month may have affected job losses, the department said, but it wouldn't quantify the impact. Other data in the report signaled the storms didn't have as much impact as feared.

Economists estimated before the report that the storms could inflate job losses by 100,000 or more. That would mean the economy generated a net gain in jobs last month, excluding the impact of the snow, for only the second time since the recession began in December 2007.

The department revised its estimate of job losses for January from 20,000 to 26,000, but said job cuts were fewer in December than originally estimated — 109,000 rather than 150,000.