The national unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent for February, a signal to some analysts that the economy is not getting worse, but to others a sign that it is stuck.

The jobs report, issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, was better than economists predicted, but with 36,000 jobs lost and long-term unemployment still at record levels, no one was saying the economy was improving.

"What we see in this report is essentially a job market on pause. The pace of decline has slowed dramatically, but jobs are not being created to put this country's nearly 15 million unemployed back to work," Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said.

Robert Smith's career is sort of like that.

Mr. Smith, 55, of Bloomfield, was working in the accounting department at Pittsburgh Brewing when the plant closed in June 2008.

"I've been looking for a job for over a year now," he said.

He said he already cashed in a 401(k) retirement account that was supposed to support him during his later years.

"I put more money into the 401(k) plan than I got out of it," he said.

He is one of the 6.1 million people across the country, 40.9 percent of the unemployed, who have been out of work for more than six months. He sends resumes, he calls employers, but there has been nothing out there for him.

For the past year, the average length of time people are unemployed has been ticking up, though in February the rate fell half a week to 29.7 weeks from January's 30.2. Even with the slight decline, the average length of unemployment is the highest it has been since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track in 1948. The highest it was before this recession was 21.2 weeks in 1983, when the 1981 recession was winding down.

Another measure of the severity of the recession is the full unemployment picture, which includes people who are unemployed, those working part time because full-time work is not available, and those who are not counted as unemployed because they have given up looking but would take a job if one was available. That rate stood at 16.8 percent, down from the high point of this recession, when it hit 17.3 in December.

One of those "underemployed" people is Gina Carpellotti, 43, of Stowe, who left her job as an administrative assistant at Vassar College in July to come home after her mother suffered a stroke. Now she is selling clothing part time for $8.50 an hour at The Mall at Robinson.

"I know I'm very lucky living at home with my parents," she said. Although she has been looking for a full-time job, she has found nothing, leaving her to bite her nails during months such as this when her auto insurance payment is due.

The monthly employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a combination of two surveys. The household survey measures the unemployment rate. In the other, called the establishment survey, the bureau asks employers for their payroll data to determine how many jobs are gained or lost, how various industries are effected and how many hours people are working.

What the establishment survey found in February was that 36,000 jobs were lost nationally, and that the construction industry, particularly nonresidential construction, continued to be hit fairly hard with 64,000 jobs lost.

That situation holds true in Pittsburgh, Jack Shea, president of the Allegheny County Labor Council, said Thursday during a roundtable discussion.

Mr. Shea said that local union halls are filling with workers searching for the next job as large projects are finished up.

Manufacturing actually gained 1,000 jobs for the month, for the second straight month of gains. Those increases, still considered preliminary data, are the first gains in manufacturing employment since April 2006.

Professional and business services gained 51,000 jobs, with temporary help leading that category with 47,500 new jobs.

Wall Street rallied on the better-than-expected jobs report, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 122.06 points, the Nasdaq up 34.04 points, and the Standard & Poors 500 up 15.72 points.

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