Oil remained higher in New York after a report showed employers in the U.S. boosted payrolls more than forecast in February while the jobless rate held steady.

Crude gained as much as 0.8 percent. Payrolls rose 227,000, following a revised 284,000 gain in January that was bigger than first estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Job growth over the last six months was the strongest since 2006. The median projection of economists in a Bloomberg News survey called for a 210,000 rise in February employment.

“There’s been more optimistic news from the U.S. coming out lately,” Thina Saltvedt, an analyst at Nordea Bank AB (NDA) in Oslo, said by phone. “It seems the numbers were fairly in line with expectations.”

Crude for April delivery advanced as much as 84 cents to $107.42 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $106.85 at 1:41 p.m. in London.

-- Editors: John Buckley, Rachel Graham

To contact the reporters on this story: Lananh Nguyen in London at lnguyen35@bloomberg.net Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss on sev@bloomberg.net