The economy added significantly more jobs in the month of February than most economists had predicted – a total of 678,000 new jobs, while the unemployment rate dropped close to levels not seen since the pandemic struck two years ago almost to the day. The unemployment rate came in at an impressive 3.9%, however that’s only half the story . . . Employers around the country still have a near-record 11 million positions open, the highest number of openings since July 2021, when there was a record 11.1 million posts unfilled, but the number of Americans who said they could not look for a job because of the pandemic – and they are not counted as unemployed – fell from 1.8 million in January to 1.2 million last month. Similarly, the number of people who claim to have lost hours at work because of a pandemic-related shutdown also dropped from 6 million in January to 4.2 million in February.