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The U.S. economy gained more jobs in March than any other month in the last three years, according to a government report released Friday.

The Labor Department said the economy gained 162,000 jobs in the month, compared to a revised reading of a 14,000 job loss in February. That makes March only the third month of gains since the recession began.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a gain of 184,000 jobs. But despite missing forecasts, the March number was generally not seen as a disappointment by economists, because revisions in January and February readings added a combined 62,000 additional jobs.

The unemployment rate remained stubbornly high, holding steady at 9.7%, matching economist expectations.

"The third increase in jobs in the past five months indicates that the labor market has begun to stabilize," said Sung Won Sohn, professor at California State University Channel Islands. "However, a sustained gain in employment is some time away."

While the news was positive, there were a number of short-term factors that inflated the reading, including an addition of 48,000 by the Census Bureau as it geared up for the once-in-a-decade headcount of the U.S. population. Some economists had feared that even more of March's gain would be due solely to Census hiring, so the modest gain was viewed favorably.

March's job gain was also bolstered by weather factors -- February's numbers had been depressed by temporary job losses related to severe winter storms last month.

Still, the report was good news overall for an economy that has suffered a net loss of 8.2 million jobs since the start of 2008, a month after the official start of the recession.

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For a year, the most common Republican talking point on the economy has been a straightforward, four-word question: "Where are the jobs?" In light of the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released this morning, the GOP may need a new argument.

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The American economy added 162,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department reported Friday, in a month when the government hired thousands of temporary census workers.

The unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent, the Labor Department said, but it is expected to worsen later this year as discouraged workers re-enter the labor force. [...]

[E]conomists said the ambiguity surrounding the data did not change the underlying prognosis for the labor market. Many believe the economy has reached a turning point and will begin adding jobs at a slow, but steady, pace.

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The jobs report is easily the best we've seen since the start of the Great Recession late 2007, and the strongest overall in three years. With revised numbers for recent months, March is now the third month to show positive job growth since the start of the economic downturn, but last month's totals far exceeded the modest totals from November 2009 and January 2010.

By popular demand, I've revamped the homemade chart I run on the first Friday of every month, showing monthly job losses since the start of the Great Recession. Now, the image makes a distinction -- red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration.

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