February is known as the month for lovers, but not many people were in love with the latest numbers released by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). For the second consecutive month the US economy has seen an increase in the unemployment rate, exacerbating the uneasy feeling many have about a potential recession on the horizon.

The country's unemployment rate hit 4.8 percent as employers cut about 63,000 net jobs in February, according to a report from BLS released on Friday, March 7.

Among the hardest hit sectors of the economy were those employed by retail, construction, and manufacturing industries. In February, employment in retail trade declined by 34,000 and by 39,000 in construction. Manufacturing employment continued to decline in February, with a loss of 52,000 jobs, bringing manufacturing losses in the past 12 months to 299,000.

So what was the silver lining in the dark dismal economic cloud? Job growth continued in health care and in food services. Health-care employment grew by 36,000 in February and by 360,000 over the past 12 months. From November through February, food services added an average of 12,000 jobs per month, compared with an average gain of 28,000 jobs for the 12-month period ending in October 2007.

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