U.S. job growth likely accelerated in February as more services businesses reopened amid falling new COVID19 cases, quickening vaccination rates and additional pandemic relief money from the government, putting the labor market recovery back on firmer footing and on course for further gains in the months ahead.

The Labor Departments closely watched employment report on Friday will, however, also offer a reminder that as the United States enters the second year of the coronavirus pandemic the recovery remains excruciatingly slow, with millions of Americans experiencing long spells of joblessness and permanent unemployment.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday offered an optimistic view of the labor market, but cautioned a return to full employment this year was highly unlikely.

We will probably see more people having gone back on payrolls, said Sung Won Sohn, a finance and economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Many will be related to service jobs, but that will not mean a rapid increase in jobs. Its a slow progress toward eventual full recovery.

Nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 182,000 jobs last month after rising only 49,000 in January, according to a Reuters poll of economists. Payrolls declined in December for the first time in eight months.

Economists saw no impact from the midFebruary deep freeze in the densely populated South as the winter storms hit after the week during which the government surveyed establishments…