US Unemployment Rate

Job growth was weaker than expected in February as the Trump administration began to slash the federal workforce. Nonfarm payrolls increased by a seasonally adjusted 151,000 on the month, better than the downwardly revised 125,000 in January but less than the 170,000 consensus forecast from Dow Jones, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The unemployment rate edged higher to 4.1%. The report comes amid efforts from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to pare down the federal government, ...

The February jobs report is expected to show hiring picked up in February, while the unemployment rate held steady. This comes at a crucial moment for markets as stocks have recently been floundering amid fears about economic growth weakening in the US. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly jobs report is slated for release at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday. Economists expect nonfarm payrolls to have risen by 160,000 in February, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4%, according to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In ...

Mixed signals lately from the labor market are adding to angst for investors already on a knife’s edge over the potential threat that tariffs pose to inflation and economic growth. Depending on the perspective, employers either are cutting workers at the highest rate in years or skating by with current staffing levels. What has become clear is that workers are increasingly uncertain of their employment status and less prone to seek other opportunities, at the same time as job hunters are reporting it harder to find new positions, ...

The February NFP report will be released on Friday, March 7, at 8:30 ET. Traders and economists expect the NFP report to show that the US created 160K net new jobs, with average hourly earnings rising 0.3% m/m (4.1% y/y) and the U3 unemployment rate holding steady at 4.0%. The Trump 2.0 Administration has shaken things up in more ways than one for the economy and Federal Reserve. After a fitful stop-and-go start, tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China went into effect earlier this week, a development which won’t directly impact ...

The Trump administration’s massive federal cuts and swelling feelings of economic uncertainty helped fuel a recession-level spike in layoffs last month, new data showed Thursday. US-based employers last month announced plans to slash 172,017 jobs, a 103% increase from January and the highest February total since 2009, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas’s latest monthly job cuts report released Thursday. It’s the 12th highest monthly total in the 32 years Challenger has been tracking job cuts. The 11 others (four came during ...

There is a lot to unpack in today’s US jobs report. January non-farm payrolls came in at 143k, below the 175k consensus, but there were 100k of upward revisions to the past two months and the unemployment rate came in at 4% versus 4.1% previously and expected. Average hourly earning rose 0.5% month-on-month, but the average working week dropped to 34.1 hours – matching the lows of the pandemic period. That in itself looks a pretty solid report and would justify the Federal Reserve holding rates steady for now. We also get a whole ...