The U.S. economy shed 36,000 jobs and the unemployment rate was unchanged in February, according to a government report released Friday.
The Labor Department said the jobless rate held steady at 9.7% last month, the same level from January.
February's unemployment rate was lower than economists' consensus forecast of 9.8%, according to a survey conducted by Briefing.com. The level of job loss was also lower than economists' expectations that the economy shed 68,000 jobs in the month.
The results were still worse than the previous month, as just 26,000 jobs were lost in January, according to a revised estimate.
But the winter storms that blanketed the East Coast with several feet of snow last month likely skewed the results. The Labor Department's jobs survey was conducted in the middle of February, which coincided with blizzards that temporarily shuttered some businesses and kept many workers home without pay. Those employees would not have been counted on the government's payroll survey.
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