**The US unemployment rate was unchanged in January, official figures from the Labor Department have shown.**Last month’s rate stayed at 9.7%, the same as it was in January, but it is unclear how much the winter storms have affected hiring and firing.
US employers cut 36,000 jobs in February, better than the 50,000 that analysts had been expecting.
Employment in the construction sector fell, while there were more jobs for temporary workers.
Since the start of the recession in December 2007, employment has fallen by 8.4 million, but recent US economic data has been improving gradually.
On Wednesday the Federal Reserve’s influential Beige Book report said the US economy had continued to grow at a “modest” pace this year.
In the last three months of 2009, the US economy grew at an annualised rate of 5.9%.