Surprisingly, one of the only things spared from Old Man Winter's frigid temperatures and record breaking snowfall this year was the U.S. job market. Instead of freezing up like most of the country, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that the economy actually heated up, adding 295,000 jobs in February.

In addition to the 295,000 new jobs, the unemployment rate has dropped from 5.7 percent to 5.5 percent, marking a seven-year low that has not been seen since May 2008.

Last month's economic growth far exceeds economists' expectations that only 240,000 new jobs would be added, reports USA Today. It also shows just how far the economy has come in one year as the unemployment rate stood at 6.7 percent a year ago while February is the 12th straight month in which over 200,000 jobs were gained on a monthly basis.

"We were all on guard for signs of a February freeze-up, but this is a barn burner of a jobs report," said Mark Hamrick, an analyst at the personal finance site Bankrate.com, according to The New York Times. "The Fed will say the pieces are coming together."

Several industries added thousands of new jobs including food services, professional and business services, construction, transportation and health care, which added a whopping 24,000 jobs. Retail businesses, however, topped the list, adding 32,000 jobs last month.

"We have the wind at our back and confidence across so many sectors of our economy," U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez told CNNMoney.

Despite the victory in job growth, the BLS reported that wages, on the other hand, have only increased by 2 percent in the past 12 months. In a strong economy, wages gains should stand between 3.5 and 4 percent.

Many economists say that wages should pick up with job growth but that has not been the case in recent months.

"That's still the weak part of the report, but it's not unreasonable to think at some point in the next year, we're going to get more clear cut wage acceleration," says Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at the High Frequency Economics research firm.

Other economists are optimistically expecting wages to increase at a faster pace later this year as the job market tightens.

"We're facing a turning point, and we're going to see more pressure on wages," said Tara Sinclair, the chief economist at Indeed.com.

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