The nation’s economy generated only 21,000 net new jobs in February, and unemployment remained unchanged at 5.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported March 5. The official unemployment number does not include 392,000 discouraged workers who gave up looking for jobs in February.

The economy again lost manufacturing jobs—3,000—for the 43rd consecutive month for a total of 2.9 million manufacturing jobs lost since President Bush took office, according to BLS. The economy remains nearly 2.2 million jobs short of the more than 2.4 million new jobs the administration projected the economy would create by this time.

Over the past six months, the economy has added only 364,000 jobs, which falls nearly two-thirds short of what is needed just to accommodate new workforce entrants, much less help workers who remain unemployed. A new report by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (www.epinet.org) released March 4 finds that long-term unemployment—when a jobless worker has looked for work six months or more—rose by 198.2 percent between 2000 and 2003.

“The statistics clearly show the crisis is not being addressed and our country’s leaders are oblivious to the suffering of the unemployed,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.