The U.S. Labor department released Friday its stats for the month February, and it looks like the early growth job surge from January was no fluke. Employment is up, joblessness is down.

The nationwide jobless rate dropped to 5.5 percent for the month, while a 295,000 nonfarm jobs were added to the economy. Dow Jones and Bloomberg had much lower predictions, according to 24/7 Wall Street.

Job gains were seen by several industries and sectors: food services, drinking places, professional and business services, construction, health care, transportation, and warehousing.

Long-term unemployment — jobless for 27 weeks or longer — didn’t move much in either direction, though. Long-term unemployment comprises 31.1 percent of the nation’s total unemployment. Thankfully, long-term unemployed is down by 1.1 million.

Eight million jobs were lost after the ‘08 recession, and it has taken almost seven years to gain them all back.