UPDATE - US adds 678,000 jobs in February, unemployment falls to 3.8%

ADDS REMARKS FROM US PRESIDENT

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - The US economy added 678,000 jobs in February, well above market estimates, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.8%, the Department of Labor announced on Friday.

Market estimates for nonfarm payrolls were to see an increase of 400,000 last month.

Job additions for January were revised up by 14,000, from 467,000 to 481,000, according to data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 3.8% in February, from 4% in January.

The market expectation for the unemployment rate was to come at 3.9% last month.

The number of unemployed individuals in the US declined to 6.3 million in February, down from 6.5 million the previous month.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, more than 22 million people in the world’s largest economy lost their jobs in March and April 2020.

Touting the strong jobs figure, President Joe Biden said the American economy has created 7.4 million jobs since he took office.

"More people are rejoining the labor force and finding jobs as we recover from the pandemic," he said in a statement released by the White House.

"Today’s report underscores that the United States is uniquely well positioned to deal with the challenge that inflation has posed across the world as we recover from the pandemic," he added.