The government said this morning that the unemployment rate held at 9.7% in February for the second month in a row. The health-care sector added 12,000 jobs.

That continues the series of monthly job gains that has made health care an economic bright spot since the start of the recession. Read the latest Bureau of Labor Statististics summary.

For February, the subsector for ambulatory health-care services posted the largest runup, adding 6,700 jobs. Nursing and residential-care facilities hired another 4,000, according to the BLS breakdown.

Bonus: The economy and still-high unemployment rate may help explain why seasonal flu has seemed so mild this winter, according to research cited by our colleagues at the Real Time Economics blog. You can read why here.

Reported by James A. White