February payroll expectancy encourage job creation in the U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers cut fewer jobs than expected during the snowy month of February while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent, boosting the theory that the economy is about to start creating jobs.

The Labor Department said Friday that payrolls fell by 36,000 jobs, and said he could not establish the impact that bad weather would have on the data.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the economy lost 50,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate climbed to 9.8 percent.

The median forecast of 20 analysts more accurate in their estimates also indicated a decline of 50,000 jobs, while that of the 10 economists who are usually more accurate in its forecast was for a loss of 70,000 jobs.

"That means we're turning the page in terms of job creation," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Job losses in December and January were revised to reflect that 35,000 jobs were lost than previously estimated.

Equity indices on Wall Street rose after the report, while prices of government debt fell strongly. Meanwhile, the dollar rose against the euro and yen.

Traders are betting that the data better than expected could lead the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates later this year.

Operations on the interest rate futures showed that short-term investors believe the central bank will raise its benchmark interest rate for November.

"The emergency level of interest rates is still not guaranteed by the markets or the economy," said Chris Rupkey, economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York.

"The Fed is going to apply the scissors to their press release. They're going to stop telling the markets on March 16 that the exceptionally low rates are needed for a long time," he added, in relation to the policy meeting Fed's monetary

Snow Storm

Half the job losses were due to government workers, but it is expected that this category registered a sharp gain in the coming months, as they recruit a growing number of people for conducting a census next. In February, 15,000 temporary employees hired for the census.

Analysts feared that the heavy snowstorms that hit large parts of the United States during the review period may lead to distortions in the employment figures.

However, the Labor Department said that although storms may have impacted payroll employment was difficult to quantify the overall effect.

Moreover, it is unclear how many workers that would come to payrolls in February for removal of snow or arrangements related to the storms, the department said.

Unemployment is one of the biggest headaches facing the president Barack Obama, whose approval ratings have been falling.

The president said the February figures showed that economic measures taken by his Government had succeeded, noting that the employment numbers were better than expected even despite the snowstorms.

Obama and his Democratic Party fear that voters could punish them in the November elections if there is no lower unemployment as the economy emerges from a fierce recession.

The White House on Friday blamed the snow by the decline in payrolls last month and said there is a stabilization and a gradual recovery in the labor market.

Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, have lost 8.36 million jobs.

The labor market is gradually improving and the pace of layoffs has slowed with strength over early last year, when the economy lost an average of 750,000 jobs per month.

The manufacturing sector created 1,000 jobs in February, but construction eliminated 64,000. The sector of temporary jobs to 48,000 workers joined.

Employers have hired temporary workers during the past five months, after nearly two years of declines. Most economists believe that an increase in temporary help is a prelude to increases in payroll.

Meanwhile, the average workweek for all classes of employees fell slightly to 33.8 hours from 33.9 hours in January.