WASHINGTON — U.S. companies added jobs in March for the first time in eight months, fresh evidence that the economy is recovering even though the unemployment rate edged up to 5.7 percent.

        The Labor Department reported Friday that payrolls grew by 58,000 during the month, a welcome sign after companies had slashed hundreds of thousands of positions as they tried to cope with the recession and the jolt of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

        “The economy and the job market have turned the corner from recession to recovery,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.

        Though factories, hardest hit by the slump, continued to shed jobs in March, losses during the month totaled just 38,000, the smallest cut since December 2000.

        “The manufacturing sector has seen a number of positive signals,” said George Vredeveld, director of the Economic Center for Education & Research at University of Cincinnati. “Inventories were down so low, we knew that they'd have to start replenishing those.”

        The average weekly hours worked in manufacturing grew in March to 41.1 hours from 40.7 hours — “a clear sign that manufacturing is on the mend and orders are picking up,” National Association of Manufacturers president Jerry Jasinowski said. Economists said the pickup in weekly hours bodes well for some job growth at factories in the coming months.

        Even though economists are optimistic that the nation's payrolls will continue to grow, many still foresee a rise in the nation's unemployment rate. That's because they don't think job growth will be strong enough to take care of an expected increase of people entering the labor force.

        “That's very, very common,” Mr. Vredeveld said. “As people become more optimistic about the economy, they go back into the labor market and seek jobs.”

        The unemployment rate only covers people who are actively looking for work. People not working and not looking for work are not considered unemployed because they are not considered part of the labor market.

        Many economists think that the jobless rate will peak around 6 percent by June.

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