Employers added 295,000 jobs in February

America has nearly 3 million more nonfarm workers now than it did at the start of the recession. But the number of Americans working full-time still isn’t quite back to that figure’s pre-recession high. This chart is a look at the number of Americans who say they “usually work full-time.” It shows that right now, with nearly 121 million full-time workers, we’re still around 1 million full-time workers shy of where we were pre-recession.

We’ve had a full year of monthly payroll growth over 200,000, and that’s excellent news. But one key thing to remember in all of the good jobs news is that not all jobs are created equal. The labor market is healing, but we’re still only almost back to where we started on full-time work. Meanwhile, the number of part-time workers still hasn’t come down from its spike during the recession.

The unemployment rate is probably the best-known statistic about the job market. And it fell in February from 5.7 percent to 5.5 percent.

Here’s why that might not be as great as it sounds.

A big reason people care about this morning’s jobs report is that the Federal Reserve is widely expected to begin raising interest rates soon, after several years of holding those rates near zero. Lower rates boost short-term economic growth, but they also create a risk of inflation. The stronger the jobs report is, the stronger the argument is for the Fed to start raising rates.

So on the surface, today’s news that the economy added 295,000 jobs in February, well above economists’ expectations, seems like an argument for the Fed to raise interest rates sooner rather than later. However, the wage data tells another story:

America’s nonfarm employers added 295,000 jobs to their payrolls in February, well over consensus estimates of around 230,000. The unemployment rate also fell, from 5.7 to 5.5 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. Here’s a look at the figures from the report that are great...as well as those that are less inspiring.

We’re all hoping for an improvement in hourly wages in the February jobs report, out today. At his popular economics blog Calculated Risk, Bill McBride writes that workers are in for a year of bigger paychecks. In 2015, he writes, we could finally see Americans’ wages rise meaningfully.

He gives three big reasons (you can — and should — read his entire post here). Here’s the short version:

Friday is March jobs day, and the big question is whether the labor market last month repeated the all-around fantastic performance it had in January. Yet another gangbusters month could be a sign that the job market is once and for all shaking off its sluggishness. The consensus estimates are that payrolls grew by 230,000 in February, with unemployment slipping slightly to 5.6 percent, according to Bloomberg. Here are a few more big things to watch for in the jobs report:

Wages — Wages have become the indicator to watch during jobs day. Higher pay is a surefire sign that slack in the labor market is diminishing, as employers have to pay more to get and keep good workers. We have some other signs that wages are picking up, most notably at Walmart and TJ Maxx. And in January, the average wage picked up by its biggest interval since 2008. If that keeps growing, it suggests that January wasn’t just a blip.