February employment growth exceeds January pace

According to new numbers from the Leading Indicator of National Employment (LINE), February's employment growth exceeded the sluggish pace seen in January. New job growth remains encouraging as most U.S. manufacturers plan to hire for vacant positions over the next 30 days.

Even though LINE and the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated job growth was slow in January, HR professionals were optimistic that hiring would increase in February. This month's LINE indicates February overall job growth did rebound substantially from January, but remained below last summer's pace. February data also indicates that much of the job growth occurred with hourly production workers, but not for managerial and professional positions.

February's LINE manufacturing employment index is 60.5, up 2.7 points from January's 57.8. An index value above 50 indicates employment is growing.

The employment expectations index for February is 70.3, up 1 point from January's 69.3.