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The U.S. economy added 295,000 jobs in the February, according to the Labor Department's monthly survey and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent. The latest strong data beat expectations and follows on the heels of a robust jump for the previous month — a sign that the economy is finally picking up steam.

Expectations among economists had been for the economy to add another 240,000 jobs from last month and for the unemployment rate to notch back down to 5.6 percent, where it stood for December. The slight increase in the rate last month was attributed to strong growth in the labor force.

The average workweek for nonfarm payrolls was 34.6 hours, a figure that has held steady for five months. The average hourly wage rose 3 cents to $24.78.

As NPR's John Ydstie reported this morning ahead of the release by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report for January "was stellar on almost every count. It revealed a monthly average for job growth of 336,000 over the previous 3 months, and it showed strong wage gains after years of disappointing growth."

The Labor Department more jobs were added in food services and drinking places, professional and business services, construction, health care, and in transportation and warehousing.

The latest report comes as the Federal Reserve has signaled that it is likely to raise interest rates, possibly as soon as June, based on the generally more robust economy and concerns about inflation pressures.

Today's reports shows 51,000 new jobs in February in professional and business services and 29,000 new jobs in construction. Transportation and warehousing were up 19,000 jobs and the retail sector gained 32,000. Over the past 12 months. Both construction and retail have gained about 320,000 jobs over the past year.

Reuters reports from London: "The dollar hit an 11-year high against major currencies on Friday as investors bet the monthly U.S. jobs report would increase the chances of rate hikes, even as the European Central Bank embarks on a 1 trillion euro bond-buying campaign."

jobs report

Unemployment

The U.S. economy added 295,000 jobs in the February, according to the Labor Department's monthly survey and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent. The latest strong data beat expectations and follows on the heels of a robust jump for the previous month — a sign that the economy is finally picking up steam.

Expectations among economists had been for the economy to add another 240,000 jobs from last month and for the unemployment rate to notch back down to 5.6 percent, where it stood for December. The slight increase in the rate last month was attributed to strong growth in the labor force.

The average workweek for nonfarm payrolls was 34.6 hours, a figure that has held steady for five months. The average hourly wage rose 3 cents to $24.78.

As NPR's John Ydstie reported this morning ahead of the release by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report for January "was stellar on almost every count. It revealed a monthly average for job growth of 336,000 over the previous 3 months, and it showed strong wage gains after years of disappointing growth."

The Labor Department more jobs were added in food services and drinking places, professional and business services, construction, health care, and in transportation and warehousing.

The latest report comes as the Federal Reserve has signaled that it is likely to raise interest rates, possibly as soon as June, based on the generally more robust economy and concerns about inflation pressures.

Today's reports shows 51,000 new jobs in February in professional and business services and 29,000 new jobs in construction. Transportation and warehousing were up 19,000 jobs and the retail sector gained 32,000. Over the past 12 months. Both construction and retail have gained about 320,000 jobs over the past year.

Reuters reports from London: "The dollar hit an 11-year high against major currencies on Friday as investors bet the monthly U.S. jobs report would increase the chances of rate hikes, even as the European Central Bank embarks on a 1 trillion euro bond-buying campaign."

jobs report

Unemployment

Ebola hasn't been in the news much lately.

That's because the number of new cases has plummeted since the height of the epidemic late last year. In fact, the turnaround has been so dramatic that Liberia, once the hardest-hit country, is now on the brink of declaring itself Ebola-free.

But two headlines from Sierra Leone this week caught our attention.

According to reports, a boat with sick fishermen sparked a new outbreak in the capital. Meanwhile, the vice-president of Sierra Leone was under quarantine after his bodyguard died of Ebola.

To get the full scoop, we spoke with Umaru Fofana, a reporter with Reuters who's based in the capital, Freetown.

What's the latest with the vice president, Samuel Sam-Sumana?

One of his bodyguards had become infected with [and died of] Ebola, so he imposed a 21-day quarantine on himself. It's the first time that a high-level government official has been in quarantine because of Ebola. But he really had no choice. It was public knowledge [that his bodyguard had Ebola], and I think he would have looked really bad if he hadn't followed the rules.

The president of Sierra Leone is out of the country [in Europe], so the vice president is in charge. He says he's working from home, that he's running the country online.

How exactly does one run a country from a laptop?

It's difficult because some of the work he has to do requires giving a signature. If he has documents that he needs to sign, how does he sign them? Even if someone were to slip a document under his door, no one can come in contact with the envelope, so I don't know how all that works.

What happened in this fishing community? How bad was the outbreak there?

The community is called Aberdeen. It's a slum in the capital [Freetown], by the beach, filled with lots of shanties. One area of the slum actually borders a boundary wall of the most expensive hotel in the city.

From what I understand, a man who was sick or dead with Ebola arrived there on a boat. A few residents were infected, and one of them traveled to the north, and ultimately several dozen people there became infected because of him. At first, there was a sense of panic over the new cases in this fishing slum, because of the set-up [many people packed close together]. But the WHO response was very fast, and the slum itself had very few cases. The area had been quarantined but now that quarantine is about to be lifted.

In late November, Sierra Leone was seeing over 500 new cases of Ebola each week. By late January, that number had plummeted to fewer than 100 hundred a week. Now things are stagnant: approximately 60 to 80 new cases a week for the past month. What's the mood on the ground?

I think complacency has crept in, to be honest. You don't see the kind of vigilance that used to exist, where there were buckets [of chlorinated water] all over the place [for hand-washing]. You don't see that these days, because the sense is that the virus has been defeated.

But in the more recent times there has been a resurgence and there is now some concern with the figures coming in, ebbing and flowing. People are a bit worried again, particularly when they compare themselves with neighboring Liberia [which saw no new cases this past week]. So the idea that Liberia is doing well while we are not has led to some frustration and some amount of hopelessness. But overall, people do feel like the worst is over.

Sierra Leone

ebola

Did you take a lunch break yesterday? Are you planning to take one today?

Chances are the answer is no. Fewer American workers are taking time for lunch. Research shows that only 1 in 5 five people step away for the midday meal. Most workers are simply eating at their desks.

But studies have also found that the longer you stay at work, the more important it is to get outside of the office, even if it's just for a few minutes, because creativity can take a hit when you don't change environments.

"We know that creativity and innovation happen when people change their environment, and especially when they expose themselves to a nature-like environment, to a natural environment," says Kimberly Elsbach, a professor at the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management, who studies workplace psychology.

"So staying inside, in the same location, is really detrimental to creative thinking. It's also detrimental to doing that rumination that's needed for ideas to percolate and gestate and allow a person to arrive at an 'aha' moment," Elsbach tells Jeremy Hobson, host of Here & Now.

And in a knowledge-based economy, where innovation is what your workers produce, that can also be detrimental to the bottom line.

To reap the benefits of a lunch break, "you don't actually need to go eat," Elsbach says, "you just need to get out. And it doesn't have to be between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to have a positive impact. It can be just going outside and taking a walk around the block. That in itself is really restorative."

Elsbach's own research has found that "mindless" work — which can include tasks like walking — can enhance creativity, she tells The Salt.

Interview Highlights:

On why the lunch hour is disappearing

"The work day runs now from much earlier in the morning to late at night, and it's also not a standard 9 to 5. So ... when you eat or when you take a break to get some sustenance is not going to be the same [as it used to be]. Also, there's just this demand to be forever available, so people are reluctant to leave their desk in case they miss something. And so people are eating at their desk — if they're eating at all — and are just there for longer periods of time."

On lunch breaks and labor laws

"People who are in more staff or line jobs that are unionized or regulated by labor rules, [those] are the people who are left taking lunch – because it's mandated. But for white-collar workers and managers it's not, and so they're the group who are least likely to take lunch."

On making sure you take a break by creating a lunch culture at work

"It's tough. One of the things I think helps is ... creating a community around it. So you can set up an online forum where you say, OK, these are the different activities we're doing. There's one group that's going to meet and eat sack lunch outside. There's another group that's going to go for a walk around the local environment. There's another group that's going to go to a favorite restaurant. And so you create community around it, and you're not doing it by yourself and being seen as the odd person out. ...

"You need to get the top managers to be part of this community of taking time off in the middle of the day to eat lunch, to go for a walk, to have a coffee break. They need to be included in the community and model that behavior for the rest of the workforce."

This story comes to us via Here & Now, a show produced by NPR and member station WBUR in Boston. You can listen to an audio version of this story on WBUR's website.

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