Actual Jobs Lost v. Unemployment Rate in February

This is a quibble! But have you noticed how all financial news-about unemployment, or new housing sales, and the like-always centers on the “rate” of change? So all the news is headlined as “Jobless rate is unchanged.” But this “unchange” means that 36,000 more jobs disappeared in the month of February. Why is it of use to us to track a rate? That’s of use to the government, or historians, and maybe economists. It’s of use to readers to say something like: “The number of new jobs lost in February alone is greater than the entire population of Ithaca, New York.”