The US economy added 216,000 jobs in February, and the unemployment rate dropped slightly to 8.8% according to the latest report from the Department of Labor.  Here's a look at the unemployment trends from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The number of jobs continued to tick up in most private sector fields, while local government jobs continues to fall.  The jobless rate has now fallen a full percentage point since November.  Here are some of the key data from other areas we like to track in the monthly jobs report:

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in March, at 8.4 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

In March, 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, up slightly from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 921,000 discouraged workers in March, little changed from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in March had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

Read the full report from the BLS here.