Job Gains Strong But Jobless Rate Rises By Tim Ahmann WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers created 262,000 jobs last month, the biggest gain in four months and double January's pace, but the good news for workers was tempered by a rise in the jobless rate. Other reports on Friday showed an unexpected, if slim, rise in factory orders in January and a dip in consumer sentiment last month. The Labor Department said February's increase in nonfarm employment, the biggest since October, came as auto workers returned from temporary layoffs and construction activity snapped back from an unusually cold January. The unemployment rate, however, rose to 5.4 percent from January's 5.2 percent. The rise in the jobless rate, drawn from a separate survey of households, partly reflected an increase in workers entering the labor force. The payroll gain came in above Wall Street forecasts, but still shy of levels some traders had braced for after a service-sector employment gauge on Thursday showed a big jump. Stock prices rose as the data fueled optimism on growth without the offsetting fear of higher inflation. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 107 points to a more than 3-1/2 year high of 10,940. U.S. government bond prices also gained, while the dollar fell, on the view the Federal Reserve could keep inflation at bay with a steady diet of small interest rate rises. Some economists were optimistic the payroll gain, which snapped a string of three relatively sluggish months capped with a revised rise of 132,000 in January, could herald more vigorous job growth, but others said it was too soon to say. David Berson, chief economist at mortgage market giant Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote , Profile , Research ) , said the numbers told a "bipolar story," with solid jobs creation on one side, and the rise in the jobless rate and unchanged readings on earnings and the length of the workweek on the other. "It certainly doesn't indicate that the economy is slipping, not with the pickup in payroll numbers, but ... there are no inflation signals from this as well," he said. WELCOME BACK     Continued ... Quelle "Job Gains Strong But Jobless Rate Rises" : reuters.com Main page for "Job Gains Strong But Jobless Rate Rises"