NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -Hiring picked up in February, helping to bring the unemployment rate down to its lowest level since December 2008.
The U.S. economy added 236,000 jobs in February, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. That's much stronger growth than in January, when employers hired a revised 119,000 workers.
The gains were broad-based as offices, restaurants, construction firms and hospitals all added jobs.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate dipped to 7.7%, as 12 million workers were counted as unemployed. The drop was partly because more people said they got jobs, but also because 130,000 people dropped out of the labor force.
People from the Salvation Army of Brown County and the Northeastern Wisconsin region of the American Red Cross stand ready to help the victims of the tornado in Oklahoma....