The economy added 290,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported, far more than analysts had expected. The figure was embraced by economists who have lamented that the improvements in the economy, including in the housing and manufacturing sectors, had not been accompanied by encouraging news about the workforce. U.S. employers have added jobs for the past four months, according to the government survey.
At the same time, the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 9.9 percent last month … Employers have added more than 500,000 jobs this year, not nearly enough to compensate for the more than 8 million lost during the recession, but a step in the right direction, economists said.
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