Unemployment Drops to 7.7%

The February jobs report is out, and it's way better than economists expected: The unemployment rate dropped to 7.7% from January's 7.9%; economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected it to drop to 7.8%. That's the lowest rate since December 2008. And the economy added 236,000 jobs; those economists expected 160,000. The Wall Street Journal notes that while 2012 saw an average of 183,000 new jobs created per month, the last four months have seen a monthly average of 205,000. "The trend is our friend," it quips.

One less positive note from the report: January's new jobs, initially reported as 157,000, were adjusted to 119,000. But December's numbers were adjusted in the other direction, to 219,000 from an initial report of 196,000, the AP reports. (More unemployment stories.)