Hiring Boom Draws Workers Back

At 4.1%, unemployment rate held at 17-year low.

Companies ramped up hiring last month and people flooded back into the workforce, a potent mix suggesting the U.S. economy can run strong without overheating and forcing the Federal Reserve to slam its brakes on the expansion with aggressive interest-rate increases.

Investors, applauding the combination of robust economic growth and a restrained central bank, sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 440.53 points, or 1.77%, to 25335.74.

Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 313,000 in February, the largest monthly gain since July 2016 and well above the average monthly gain in the expansion, the Labor Department said Friday.

More than 800,000 Americans joined the labor force for the month, according to the report, many bypassing unemployment and jumping straight into jobs. It was the largest one-month labor-pool increase since 1983, outside months that included temporary Census hiring.

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