Official figures show that US employers cut a smaller than expected 36,000 jobs in February, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged at 9.7% of the workforce.
The report from the Labor Department said it was unclear how severe weather had affected job numbers.
It said job losses for December and January had been revised to show 35,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported. Economists had expected a drop of around 50,000 jobs last month and a rise in the jobless rate to 9.8%.
Analysts had feared that the heavy snowstorms that hit large areas of the US during the survey week for the employment report would cause a huge drop. But the Labor Department said that while the winter storms might have affected payrolls, it was difficult to quantify the net impact on employment.
Unemployment is one of the toughest challenges facing President Barack Obama, whose approval ratings have dropped.
Obama and fellow Democrats worry voters could punish them in November congressional elections if no progress is made in putting Americans back to work as the economy emerges from its worst downturn since the 1930s. Since the start of the recession, 8.36 million jobs have been lost.
The US labour market is gradually improving and the pace of lay-offs has slowed markedly from early last year when the economy was losing 750,000 jobs on average a month.
A breakdown of the February figures showed that manufacturing added 1,000 jobs, but construction lost 64,000.
