RJ and Makay

Factory overtime is on the rise, according to the Labor Department, and that's great news for a lot of Americans who've had to settle for part-time work when they wanted to be full-time. On average, factory workers put in 4.2 hours of overtime in February, the most since July 2007.

“There's only so much overtime you can make your workers work before you have to add [employees],” says John Canally, an economic strategist at LPL Financial. Some of the latest economic data points to further employment gains in manufacturing in coming months, he adds.

Economy watchers waiting for revised fourth-quarter GDP figures got a bit of a shock today. Instead of the upward revision from 3.2% to 3.3% they expected, the government adjusted its fourth-quarter estimate down to 2.8% on deep spending cuts by state and local governments.

However, the revised figure is still better than the third quarter's 2.6% growth rate. Furthermore, excluding inventories, the economy expanded at a 6.7% annual pace, the most since 1998.