The economy has been full of surprises lately. Take the February 2017 U.S. jobs report, for example. The experts had expected 190,000 new jobs, and were surprised by the 298,000 new positions filled in the United States. It was the country’s best pace of job gains since April 2014. Small and midsized businesses with fewer than 500 employees led gains, accounting for nearly 76 percent of the employment additions. A bigger surprise was that manufacturing accounted for 106,000, and construction, 66,000 positions—their best performance since 2002 and 2006, respectively.