Jobs report brings good news

U.S. employers added 304,000 jobs to the economy in January, the most in nearly a year, the federal government reported Friday. The gain follows a decade of economic expansion, with the United States seeing added jobs for 100 straight months, the longest such period ever reported. Hiring has accelerated since last summer despite December job growth coming in below predictions.

Unemployment rose to 4 percent from 3.9 percent, according to the report, but it was mostly due to the roughly 175,000 federal workers counted as temporarily unemployed during the partial government shutdown. The increase in jobs was a pleasant surprise on the tail end of the shutdown, when the federal government spent less, thousands of government workers missed two paychecks, and national parks were shuttered.