A snapshot of US job market on eve of Feb. data.

Hiring skidded in December and January to roughly half its average monthly pace of last year. Auto buying, existing-home sales and factory orders have slid as key economic sectors surrendered to a harsh winter. And the economy entered 2014 with less momentum than initially thought.

All of which magnifies the importance of Friday's jobs report. The Labor Department data could help confirm the belief that nasty weather froze much of the job market last month — and that spring should bring a bounce back. The February jobs report could also expose some of the frailties of a still-sluggish economic recovery that's almost a half-decade old.

Economists predict that employers added 145,000 jobs in February and that the unemployment rate remained 6.6 percent, according to a survey by FactSet.

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