March 12, 2012 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Payroll employment increases by 227,000 in February 2012

One-month change in payroll employment, by industry, February 2011
Industry	Change in payroll employment (p)
Professional and business services	82,000
Education and health services	71,000
Leisure and hospitality	44,000
Manufacturing	31,000
Transportation and warehousing	10,600
Wholesale trade	8,400
Financial activities	6,000
Mining and logging	6,000
Utilities	800
Information	-1,000
Government	-6,000
Other services	-6,000
Retail trade	-7,400
Construction	-13,000
Footnotes: (p) = preliminary

Unemployment rates by selected demographic group, December 2011–February 2012
Demographic group	Dec 2011	Jan 2012	Feb 2012
Total, 16 years and over	8.5	8.3	8.3
Adult men (20 years and over)	8.0	7.7	7.7
Adult women (20 years and over)	7.9	7.7	7.7
Teenagers (16 to 19 years)	23.1	23.2	23.8
White	7.5	7.4	7.3
Black or African American	15.8	13.6	14.1
Hispanic or Latino ethnicity	11.0	10.5	10.7
NOTE: Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race.

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