(Iowa Capital Dispatch) The United States lost 92,000 jobs in February, edging unemployment up slightly according to the latest employment figures released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The report showed, for the third time in the last five months, losses among nonfarm jobs and highlighted a continued “trend down” in the information sector and federal government employment. The federal workforce is down by 11% from its peak in October 2024, according to the bureau. The report also noted a decrease in health care jobs, “reflecting strike activity.”
Unemployment ticked up to 4.4% from 4.3% in January, and rates remained higher for women, teenagers and non-white workers.
Administration officials blamed the job losses on winter weather on the East Coast and labor strife among West Coast health care workers.
But Democrats faulted President Donald Trump’s policies, including military action in Iran and reimposing tariffs after the U.S. Supreme Court said many of Trump’s taxes on foreign goods were illegal.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday’s report is a “blaring alarm that Donald Trump’s economy is deteriorating rapidly,” and speculated the nearly week-old war in Iran will only make things worse.
“Now we’ve seen job losses in two of the last three months and an economy teetering on the edge of recession,” Schumer said in a Friday morning statement. “Tariffs are increasing costs, gas prices are spiking, and jobs are evaporating: The Trump Republican agenda is failing the American people and without immediately changing course the economy may go over the cliff.”
The unexpected report, combined with uncertainty over the war with Iran, rattled U.S. markets Friday morning, sparking a drop across all indexes, according to a daily update from the New York Stock Exchange’s Eric Criscuolo.
Economists had estimated a February jobs gain for the U.S. to land around 59,000, according to Criscuolo. Additionally, the report is in stark contrast to January’s figures, which showed the economy gained 130,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Trump officials project optimism
But the administration is brushing off negative headlines, and attributing the weak report to ice and snow storms in February and a month-long strike by Kaiser Permanente health care workers.
“While record-breaking strikes and bad winter weather dragged down February nonfarm employment, the unemployment rate held steady, and there are several positive signs for our economy that continue to show American workers are recovering from the mess left behind by Biden,” Labor Secretary Lorie Chavez DeReemer said in a statement.
She added that the administration’s massive tax and spending cuts law enacted in July is positive for the economy.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, told CNBC Friday, “I think what we need to start doing with these jobs numbers, at least on the payroll side, is take the average over a few months.”
“And if you take the average over a few months, we had a surprisingly positive one last month and a surprisingly negative one this one. But on average, it’s about what we expect to be seeing,” he said, adding that the sharp fall in immigration is leading to “break-even employment” in the U.S.
No growth
Economists cautioned the jobs report builds on a negative economic outlook for the country.
“While it’s never sensible to read too much into one month of data, this morning’s report showing a decline in nonfarm payrolls and an increase in the unemployment rate comes at a difficult moment, with inflation still above target and an oil price shock threatening to raise inflation further,” said Daniel Hornung, a fellow at Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research.
“The report complicates the Fed’s efforts to keep both unemployment and inflation low, and it makes it difficult for the Administration to argue heading into the midterms that their policies are leading to the kind of growth or improvement in living standards that they’ve long promised,” Hornung, the deputy director of the National Economic Council under President Joe Biden, said.
David Kelly, JPMorgan Asset Management’s chief global strategist, described the report as “weak.”
“We’re not seeing any job growth at all, really, in this economy,” Kelly told CNBC Friday morning. “But because immigration has done such a 180 here, and we’ve got a huge drop in the labor force — and that’s keeping the unemployment rate from spiking here — but it’s a very, very slow economy.”
