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US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February
- reactordev 7mo ago“Unexpectedly” Right…
- gigatexal 7mo agoWhat a favorable headline. In reality everyone knows why the economy isn’t growing: Trump’s policies are paradoxically anti business given his public persona of this big bad amazing businessman. The guy failed at selling steaks in America. In America.
- dfxm12 7mo agoI think failing at gambling (especially at a time when like 2 cities had a monopoly on gaming in the US) is bigger proof of his lack of acumen.
- dylan604 7mo agoYou say fail, but that's because you're looking at it from a "running a business" viewpoint. Instead, you have to look at "enrich personal wealth" viewpoint. It's possible to run a business into the ground while personally gaining financially. A failing business has some beneficial tax purposes. So people that think these failed businesses are a negative just need to look at them differently. They succeeded in their true purpose. The "running a business" was just the facade.
- dfxm12 7mo agoI guess he did campaign on running the country like one of his businesses. A rare promise kept from a politician. :)
- owyn 7mo agoYeah, the scam is to inflate the value of your properties, then claim a write-off when it fails. For "some reason" you can even use other people's money for the investments and claim the losses for yourself. Then you can use that as a deduction when you actually make money again. One scammer in particular pulled this trick for 10 years, rolling it forward and filing a $916 million loss with the IRS in 1995. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/07/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/07/us/politics/d...
- dashundchen 7mo agoOh don't worry, Trump and his cronies have been growing their wealth just fine. His net worth has grown over $4 billion since taking office again, and that doesn't count his sons or other insiders that have been taking bribes and making insider trades. The single most corrupt politician we've ever had, with a family full of criminals. As always with these losers, the Biden Crime family was purely projection.
- spiderfarmer 7mo agoAdd to that the myriad of people in his surroundings who profit of this chaos immensely.
- jimt1234 7mo agoBut...Hunter Biden's laptop!!!
- butterbomb 7mo ago[dead]
- gigatexal 7mo agoIt’s a winning playbook. Con a bunch of disenfranchised people worried about being left behind in the tech economy and worried that their bloodlines are getting polluted by Juan (sic) by aligning yourself with their xenophobia and racism and promise them everything they want to hear: America first, no new wars, let’s get tired of winning, own the libs, … and then win and then forget about those useful idiots. Rinse and repeat.
- thrill 7mo agoFor anyone who’s been paying attention, “unexpectedly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
- mekdoonggi 7mo agoMakes sense. At the rate we're going, by 2028 the US is going essentially be Venezuela except AI instead of oil.
- giraffe_lady 7mo agoIronically probably more like iran but with evangelical christianity instead of shia islam.
- elicash 7mo agoWe extract like 12 or 13 times more oil than Venezuela.
- anigbrowl 7mo agoAs a fraction of the economy, though
- 0xy 7mo agoWith this perspective, it would make a lot of financial sense for you to short the US markets or bet on this outcome. After all, you're certain it is true.
- testfrequency 7mo agoI do not see the tourism industry mentioned here but I have to imagine that is a huge loss right now. Most of the world is not visiting the US right now which means projects and planning that was made in anticipation for summer has probably been halted or heavily reduced.
- giraffe_lady 7mo agoA lot of the US isn't visiting the US anymore either. For normal personal recessiony reasons but also I know word of mouth several large companies have cancelled planned recurring events in texas, florida, arizona, and not necessarily moved them anywhere else either.
- kspacewalk2 7mo agoThat is a much bigger deal than international arrivals.
- cheesecompiler 7mo agoThere is a significant majority of people in Canada who not only vocally decided to not go to US but discourage their friends from doing so too. People have judged me for driving through the states.
- TwoNineA 7mo agoLast year we cancelled a planned US vacation, this year we didn't even think about it. Going back to Europe two years in a row. I don't give a fuck about tariff policy of our supposed "friends" but when our "friend" repeatedly threatens our independence and sovereignty, no thanks. Not going to step into the USA for a long time.
- iso1631 7mo agoIt's not the government that's the problem per-se, it's the fact half the US supports that government
- ChoGGi 7mo agoUnexpectedly, if you've been in a coma for the past year. Let's raise tariffs again.
- jacknews 7mo agoExactly, massive price increases with the fake tariffs, hiring freezes because 'AI can do it all', who knew these things might affect jobs?
- Andrex 7mo ago"As long as it's just theoretical I don't have to feel bad. Just keep plowing ahead and breaking things." Well it's about to turn from theory to reality very soon.
- baq 7mo agotariffs on goods are mostly noise. if there were tariffs on services, though...
- wholinator2 7mo agoWhat do you mean noise? American people pay 96% of them with an average cost of $1000+ per family over the last year. To the vast majority of people that's waaayyyy above the noise floor.
- learingsci 7mo ago[flagged]
- mchaver 7mo agoDo you really intend to make such a blanket statement? If taxes are evil then it follows that any public service (police, roads, airports, hospitals, public education, libraries, publicly funded research) is evil since they are funded by taxes.
- aliljet 7mo agoThere's a vibe in at least the PNW that feels like the tech sector is sloughing jobs and avoiding creating new ones courtesy of AI. I genuinely wonder if that feeling is backed by reality and whether it's large enough to be translating into national statistics across all industries.
- giraffe_lady 7mo agoI'm not sure how much of it is actually AI vs just like, the bags of VC money have dried up and most tech companies can't anywhere near justify their personnel or often even existence without it. Like companies have been doing the RTO "stealth" layoffs for years now, it's not even news anymore, this was already well underway. There is also the obvious priapism of owners and investors to finally do to the remaining white collar workers what they have already done to everyone else. Whether or not AI actually can replace all these workers is nearly moot, they have fantasized about business without labor for so long they can't tell the difference from reality anymore.
- nerdsniper 7mo agoWhere is the money that was going to VC investments going now? With increasing inequality, I figure rich people have more money than ever that they need to figure out where to invest.
- saalweachter 7mo agoReal estate?
- imzadi 7mo agoI would like to know how much contraction is normal. I assume there's always some contraction around that time, because the holiday season is ending and the temp workers are being let go. I didn't see any mention of this in the article though (or I missed it).
- squidbeak 7mo ago> US economy >> unexpectedly << sheds 92,000 jobs in February
- buckle8017 7mo agoOk but was the expected loss 60k or 0? Makes a big difference.
- nemomarx 7mo agoI believe it was expected to grow by 50k jobs?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- bilbo0s 7mo agoWell the data says: 2022, gained 678,000 jobs in February (Doesn't really count, global economy was emerging from Covid shutdowns.) 2023, gained 311,000 jobs in February 2024, gained 275,000 jobs in February 2025, gained 151,000 jobs in February (This seems to be the point of discontinuity with gains only about half of what were typically expected.) 2026, lost the 92,000 we're talking about. (Obviously, we had expected a gain.)
- giantg2 7mo agoWe live in an infinite growth economy mindset - it's always expected to grow
- mcntsh 7mo agoWasn't this always the idea behind combating inflation? At the end of the day you need to make people poorer to make the dollar worth more...
- noah_buddy 7mo agoTrump hasn’t managed to adequately combat inflation though. Last I heard, it’s ticking up once more.
- newfriend 7mo agoYou heard wrong. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-infl...
- marcosdumay 7mo agoHow rich or poor people are is only indirectly related to how many dollars are out there.
- roenxi 7mo ago> It marked the biggest monthly job loss since October, when the US government shut down, and came amid concerns that a jump in oil prices sparked by the US-Israel war in Iran could threaten growth. It seems like a stretch to say anyone was pro-actively fired on the speculation that a war could break out in the middle east; so the war is probably unrelated. That said, if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for any length of time then something pretty drastic could happen to employment in the future tense.
- neogodless 7mo agoHeh to be pedantic about language, it could be argued that "came amid" just means "happened at the same time as." In other words "we have more bad news!" Much less so that "this caused that."
- paxys 7mo agoIf the government-approved numbers are this bad the real ones must be catastrophic.
- ck2 7mo agohey I know lets spend billon per day on war of choice for no reason for rest of year and make gas $5/gallon so even people who don't drive have to pay more for trucks going to stores and delivery oh and make old/ill people somehow work until they are sixty-five to get any food or medical assistance that should fix things right up xmas economic implosion inbound
- actionfromafar 7mo agoBut at least Russia can fund their war better, right?
- ck2 7mo agoAre you referring to where he just eased sanctions on Russian oil so they can sell again at high profit to fund their own war of choice? I figured he was going to drop sanctions on them sooner or later but that was quite the ploy The problem is zero consequences for anything he does now, completely isolated, so it's one country destroying choice after another https://reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/comments/j6z8eh https://reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/comments/j6z8eh
- dnemmers 7mo agoI believe at least part of the rationale for allowing sales, short term, is to try and reverse the oil price increase, due to the Iran war.
- sailfast 7mo agoDear leader says prices are down. So they are down. He tells me I’m doing better than ever before. So I must be.
- 7mo ago
- chazburger 7mo ago[flagged]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo agoThe fed also has to consider inflation
- spiderfarmer 7mo agoAt this point any policy decision that opposes Trump’s views is the better one.
- chazburger 7mo ago[flagged]
- mindslight 7mo agoAnd thank goodness for that! I'd never thought I'd see the day where I was praising the Fed. With a government full of arsonists lighting our institutions ablaze, the last thing we need is to dump more gasoline on the fires. The only way to unfreeze the Main Street economy is to get rid of the tyrant strangling our society for nothing more than his own personal enrichment and sick gratification.
- chazburger 7mo ago[flagged]
- mindslight 7mo agoYou seem to have misunderstood me. I definitely do not support Trump.
- chazburger 7mo ago[dead]
- spiderfarmer 7mo agoThe only people left defending the economic “policies” by the current administration are the people who are in a position to profit from all the confusion and chaos. Add to that the people who don’t understand that they are being fleeced and who’ll continue to support theire heroes because of pride, hatred, nihilism or misinformed idealism. There is a vocal minority in the last bracket, but I’m convinced they are being amplified by an army of bots.
- r_lee 7mo ago"unexpectedly"
- spiderfarmer 7mo agoYes they forgot February is a short month and they expected more.
- jjgreen 7mo agoAll even years are leap years ... aren't they?
- dpkirchner 7mo agoIt's almost every 4 years.
- SecretDreams 7mo agoCrazy thing is people will vote for this again. Some against their best interest. Others because they appreciate the divide that comes from this type of admin.
- sailfast 7mo agoI don’t believe they will. They will be thrown out soon enough and hard - but the incumbents will fight like hell to make sure people’s voices are silenced, diluted, or not counted.
- hparadiz 7mo agoThrough the magic of serendipity it just so happens that the states that decide for us happen to be MI, WI, and PA and so this concept of backlashes is quite amusing. Tech workers live in a bubble away from these states minus Philly.
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 7mo agoVote? Hopefully that's still possible! My paranoia conspiracy theory is that somehow US will declare war on Iran at some point and elections will be postoned.
- neogodless 7mo agoYour "conspiracy theory" is that the US will declare war on Iran...?
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 7mo agoYes, US did not declare war against Iran yet. The president has to request a declaration of war from congress which will vote to authorize it or not. The conspiracy part is that after war is declared Trump will use this power to postpone elections and basically give himself a 3rd term.
- 7mo ago
- iugtmkbdfil834 7mo agoCurrent rationalization from right wing commentators: 'normal part of the business cycle' It is not a bad one. You can definitely argue it both ways. I personally think there is a lot of self-inflicted pain ahead and position portfolio accordingly.
- metalliqaz 7mo ago"Unexpectedly" to nobody with an actual job.
- neogodless 7mo agoEven less unexpectedly to anyone without an actual job.
- metalliqaz 7mo agohah, point well taken. In hindsight, my use of "actual job" to mean "job that contributes to the economy rather than simply speculating on it or skimming off the top", wasn't very clear.
- h2zizzle 7mo agoI expected it. I also expect it to get revised even lower, and the gains from the last couple months to disappear. I really wish people would realize that prolonging this farce is not in their best interests. The energy potential of the inevitable blowback just keeps building.
- cc-d 7mo ago[flagged]
- nixass 7mo ago"Trump being president" and "unexpected loss of jobs" does not fit together.
- drooopy 7mo agoNothing unexpected about it.
- sailfast 7mo ago“Unexpectedly” lol We’ve been digging ourselves a giant AI-inflated hole in the economy for months and folks have just been playing musical chairs to grab as much money as possible before the music stops. Hard to believe it’s taken this long. I never wanted to live through the late 70s / early 80s economically but I guess I’ll have my chance!
- elicash 7mo agoUnexpectedly is because it's a big miss from the projected job numbers. If you felt like the expected numbers were obviously wrong for this month, you should have traded on that information.
- dboreham 7mo agoProjected by people who have no idea?
- elicash 7mo agoIf they're bad at it, you could become obscenely wealthy by betting against expectations.
- camdenreslink 7mo agoHow can you trade on projected jobs numbers? The stock market seems detached from macroeconomics anyway.
- elicash 7mo agoYou could do it directly in the various gambling apps like Kalshi, or indirectly through other types of trades in the market.
- ActorNightly 7mo agoI hate to break it to, you but AI is not the reason why the numbers are down. AI makes everyone productive - for every engineer that is laid off due to AI from big tech, that person still has skills that when coupled with AI makes them eligible for slightly lower paying job. The reason the numbers are down should be pretty obvious.
- mmastrac 7mo ago"we're all trying to find the guy who did this!" But seriously, antagonizing all of your trading partners and visitors so that tourism dies, your booze industry gets severely wounded, and making things expensive so the world's most efficient kleptocracy can keep feeding itself has some consequences, I guess.
- boringg 7mo ago[flagged]
- idiotsecant 7mo agoUh oh someone read something that made them grumpy
- danans 7mo ago> Why is this on the top of hackernews? Fundamentally because a lot of people here think it should be, but sure behind that, it's at the top for many of the reasons you state. This is a forum about work after all, something that has lots of uncertainty at the current time. > Or is just a slow news day I don't think these exist anymore
- bdangubic 7mo agoBlame it on Biden or "AI"? (should have made this into a poll... :) )
- ksherlock 7mo agoBased on the old soviet joke, the first time you blame it on your predecessor, the second time you blame it on your advisors, the third time you write 3 letters. Since Kristi Noem was fired yesterday, maybe we've moved into the second letter phase.
- neogodless 7mo agoI figured there had to be some story behind this reference, and I found this "two letters" version on Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/ussr/comments/1n7dips/soviet_joke_that_actualy_made_me_sniker/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ussr/comments/1n7dips/soviet_joke_t... Do you have a "three letter" reference?
- ksherlock 7mo agoThat's the reference but I've always heard it as 3 envelopes: 1. blame your predecessor 2. blame your staff 3. write 3 letters...
- gzread 7mo agoI wonder how easy it is to create a polymarket bet
- knorker 7mo agoIt's going to be 92,001 after they fire whoever reported something to make dear leader look bad.
- ftchd 7mo agothis is my surprised face
- cwillu 7mo ago“Unexpectedly” is doing a lot of work in that sentence
- andxor 7mo agoYour usual reminder not to come to HN for macroeconomic analysis.
- leet_thow 7mo ago[flagged]
- michelsedgh 7mo agoIve never been to bluesky but it really gives me bluesky vibes every time i come to HN these days
- Pxtl 7mo agoHN will moderate you for being loudly political unless it's for anarcho-capitalism.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- doomslayer999 7mo agoMaybe back in the old days. Now its just liberal and neo-liberal shills.
- gzread 7mo agoSo capitalism and anarcho-capitalism. It's not quite the same as bluesky. On bluesky it's all status quo stuff, on HN it's disruptinf the status quo but within the existing system.
- flush 7mo agohow is this possible
- veryemartguy 7mo ago[flagged]
- ourmandave 7mo agoOn Point on NPR covered January numbers. Apparently all 130k jobs came from the health care sector with everything else having no growth.
- phkahler 7mo ago>> Apparently all 130k jobs came from the health care sector with everything else having no growth. I wonder what a further breakdown of the data might show. The older (leading) boomers are starting to die off, so there might be a decline in needed care in the trailing boomers or something like that. Demographic change.
- zkmon 7mo agoAbsolute numbers such as 92k do not give full picture. About half million jobs get added every month and there are 165 million people employed in USA.
- kasey_junk 7mo ago> bout half million jobs get added every month Not sure what number you are referring to here? 92K losses does _not_ show the full picture but no number that I know of is saying the half a million jobs are being added to the workforce every month.
- mrexcess 7mo ago>Absolute numbers such as 92k do not give full picture A full picture of what? The metric gives us a full picture on how many jobs were added or lost in the month of February.
- noah_buddy 7mo agoAt some point, one should ask oneself, “is fully breaking the system the point?” In the recent Epstein releases, Epstein told Thiel that the best deals come from a system on the way to collapse. I think at this point it’s reasonable to consider that this is what Trump and his allies are trying to do. Crash the US economy so severely that they might use their ill-gotten wealth to buy an outsized portion of it.
- learingsci 7mo agoDefinitely not AI. We all know about Jeeves paradox. It must be the taxes on corporations (tarrifs). Taxes on business are always bad.
- game_the0ry 7mo ago> "...unexpectedly..." Really? Anyone here feel like the job market is thriving right now? Anyone surprised? Bc I was like - yeah, totally, makes sense, not surprised at all. If anything, I am waiting for that dreaded "business update" calendar invite from HR. I am already researching and taking notes on trade schools. Ready to punch that ticket any day now.
- bosch_mind 7mo agoI grew up in the US and lived there for 30 years, but now I live in Europe. Every single one of my friends in their 30's finds visiting the US absolutely terrifying (even those who have previously been). I have yet to meet a single friend in today's day that has expressed any interest in visiting.
- fckgw 7mo agoWhat part did they find "terrifying"?
- s_dev 7mo agoICE agents shooting US citizens, the mass shootings, the school shootings, the crime rate and fentanyl 'bend' posture that makes loads of poor people look like zombies, the aggressive police with guns who sometimes shoot people, burglaries that involve shootings. A lot of the problems in America seems to stem from guns and drugs but also policy. Even something as simple as crossing the road is unnecessarily complicated in America. Some roads you seem to need a car to get from A to B. It just doesn't seem peaceful but very chaotic and intense.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoThis sounds like someone who is on social media too much. The counterpart is an American in Paris convinced the banlieu are war zones. The actual problems: we’ve made it impossible and insulting to get a tourist visa. And we’ve made pissing on our tourism partners our foreign policy.
- blurbleblurble 7mo agoYour head's in the sand. Where I live we have bounty hunters kidnapping people into unmarked vans. For six months or more now. Would visitors likely be safe? Sure, but not necessarily and I can't blame people for being cautious and there's so much unpredictability around it, even for those of us who are familiar.
- mikelitoris 7mo agoUnexpectedly… right
- AndrewKemendo 7mo agoPeople were looking for the AI productivity metrics and here they are
- spankalee 7mo agoHow has today's AI meaningfully impacted construction and manufacturing jobs in the US?
- AndrewKemendo 7mo agoBy being a distraction to the administrations immigration and deportation efforts and lack of capital vehicles that can return extreme profits Vaccines don’t cause autism But Oprah and Jenny McCarthy spread enough bullshit that it led to more cases of children dying because they were out there distracting from the real problem which is not enough vaccination Real job losses come from company heads fundraising on the promise of automation and then with that additional capital they lay people off in the same way funding funds research and development or offshoring fund “efficiency improvements” and the externalities of that are higher unemployment
- Overpower0416 7mo agoAnd oil is at 90$ and rising... what is the Fed suppose to do at this point
- epistasis 7mo agoMass deportation means economic contraction. The administration has promised to deport millions of people. Mass deportations on this scale will have a somewhat drastic effect, and the true mass deportation hasn't even started, because they haven't built enough concentration camps to facilitate the deportations. Unless it is stopped the job losses will be absolutely massive, and a tiny tiny footnote to the massive human suffering that the stated mass deportation is intended to cause.
- marcosdumay 7mo agoMass deportation means economic contraction, and if done quickly it means economic disruption and loss of domestic wealth. Indiscriminate tariffs means deindustrialization, unpredictable tariffs means stagnation (inability to grow). Blatant corruption means stagnation. Aggressive international relations means disruption of any market that touches the rest of the world (with loss of wealth). Active war means the same thing as mass deportation and non-productive spending, so more contraction. Trump has an incredible ability to hit all the targets.
- zjsisba 7mo agoThis is actually why Trump won’t do them, by the way. He’s already changed his rhetoric to “criminals only”. Trump is completely captured by business interests and is not America First. Mass immigration is the billionaire first position. Younger generations understand this, so we likely won’t see some change for a bit, but it is coming. And it makes sense - they’re the ones suffering most from unfettered immigration. Their birthright is being handed out to cheap labor, because the billionaires running our society see us as cattle.
- spencerflem 7mo agoYou can be anti billionaire and still not be a fuckass racist
- newfriend 7mo agoImmigrant isn't a race.
- buellerbueller 7mo agoWorst president ever.
- drcongo 7mo agoMaybe they're all just tired of winning.
- jandrewrogers 7mo agoAs a regular reminder, BLS employment model significantly extrapolates the broader economy from government employment, and ADP employment numbers reflect the private sector. These two numbers rarely line up because government employment and private sector employment are only loosely correlated. You need to look at both to have a coherent picture. The longstanding heuristic is that the most important metric of how bad things are is if ADP < BLS. If government employment is declining it will make the BLS estimates look poor no matter what the rest of the economy is doing. I expect ADP will be negative too but it remains to be seen if it is higher or lower than the BLS number.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- rvba 7mo agoUnexpectedly? BBC is really full style right wing propaganda machine now. This time propaganda by omission (like those articles about Brexit where they never gave "no Brexit" as an option). Zero commentary on tariffs, zero commentary about tourism and ICE, nothing about other policies.
- Steve16384 7mo agoBloody BBC, keeping to the facts again...
- spankalee 7mo agoThe OP was pointing out the rather opinionated use of the word "Unexpectedly". There are lots of people who have expected these tariff and immigration policies to have a negative impact on the economy. Who wasn't expecting this? Right wing supporters of Trump. Thus the pretty reasonable claim that this is a right-wing slant.
- kesor 7mo ago160,000 if you take the revisions into account
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 7mo agoSeems like a good time to enshrine human rights and the social safety net by ratifying the ICESCR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Econ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Econ...) and giving human rights the teeth they need. I used Anthropic to analyze the situation, it did halfway decent: https://unratified.org/why/ https://unratified.org/why/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263664
- wnevets 7mo agobut at least we're great again, right?
- LostMyLogin 7mo agoBoth the unemployment rate, at 4.4 percent, and the number of unemployed people, at 7.6 million, changed little in February. (See table A-1. See the note at the end of this news release and tables A and B for more information about the annual population adjustments to the household survey estimates.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.0 percent), adult women (4.1 percent), teenagers (14.9 percent), and people who are White (3.7 percent), Black (7.7 percent), Asian (4.8 percent), or Hispanic (5.2 percent) showed little or no change in February. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) changed little at 1.9 million in February but is up from 1.5 million a year earlier. The long-term unemployed accounted for 25.3 percent of all unemployed people in February. (See table A-12.) Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.0 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.3 percent, changed little in February. These measures showed little change over the year, after accounting for the annual adjustments to the population controls. (See table A-1. For additional information about the effects of the population adjustments, see the note at the end of this news release and table B.) The number of people employed part time for economic reasons decreased by 477,000 to 4.4 million in February. These individuals would have preferred full-time employment but were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.) The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job changed little in February at 6.0 million. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job. (See table A-1.) Among those not in the labor force who wanted a job, the number of people marginally attached to the labor force changed little at 1.6 million in February. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but had not looked for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. The number of discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed that no jobs were available for them, decreased by 109,000 in February to 366,000. (See Summary table A.)
- mv4 7mo agoWhy is this unexpected? Seasonal sales hiring is over. Tech is cutting jobs (because AI). Things are generally bleak right now.
- andsoitis 7mo agoI’m not sure it is unexpected. Jobs dwindle when there’s uncertainty. And we have a lot of economic, political, and geopolitical uncertainty. So, if anything, I would be surprised if we don’t see this level of job reduction consistently for at least the rest of the year. What is less clear to me is whether it will accelerate or whether it will continue for a few years.
- Herring 7mo agoSince the end of WW2, and especially since the end of the Cold War, Democratic administrations have presided over significantly higher job growth than Republican administrations. https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ZXZLAMEEVJHZRDDY5LGDFZ3OEQ.png https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.c...
- Spivak 7mo agoBecause The DNC actually is what the Republican marketing pamphlet claims to be, a mildly right leaning pragmatic pro-business party.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago> mildly right leaning This is nonsense even if we calibrate to North America and the EU (versus the American voting public). Within America, Democrats are center left. Internationally it’s a hodgepodge of left-wing social, centre right-wing foreign and across-the-board economic policy. It’s fine to say the part is right of your preferences. But it doesn’t help your argument to be delusional about where other Americans stand.
- Spivak 7mo agoThis is why I said DNC. That wasn't just a cool synonym for Democrats. The leadership of the party sits way further right of the average Democratic voter. Someone who is right leaning has more in common with an establishment democrat than the new Conservative-led GOP. This is also why capital-M Moderate Republicans (who have a near circle overlap with the "Never Trump" movement) are so attractive to Republicans and Democrats alike in purple states.
- oulu2006 7mo agoHe's correct internationally, compared to real socialists in countries like Australia/NZ, US dems are definitely mildly center right.
- rurp 7mo ago
- dzonga 7mo agothe economy has been shedding jobs back to back now - since nov 2024. however due to the incompetent and corrupt powers that be - a lot of the news has been suppressed, and even the head of BLS fired. everyone is struggling - but I guess the economy is doing well coz of the "stock market" as we're told
- nxk 7mo ago"unexpectedly"
- Steve16384 7mo agoSince AI is taking a lot of the jobs and businesses are presumably generating just as much if not more profit due to lower wage costs, I think the world has to align to a new paradigm: a lot of people will be unemployed because the jobs just aren't there any more, but a higher tax on the rich companies can be used to pay for benefits for all the unemployed. This is the new utopia.
- standardUser 7mo agoImagine running a company with any exposure to Trump's schizophrenic tariffs. I wouldn't hire either.
- shevy-java 7mo agoTrump is too busy bombing other countries. All that money goes to the private military complex.
- fishcrackers 7mo ago[dead]
- Rexxar 7mo agoHere is the official source: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/economicdata/empsit_03062026.pdf https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/economicdata/empsit_03062026.pd... Some of the main categories (page 8 of the pdf): - Construction: -11.0k - Manufacturing: -12.0k - Transportation and warehousing: -11.3k - Private education and health services: -34.0k - Information -11.0k - Leisure and hospitality -27.0k It seems to go down in lots of different sectors.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoHealthcare was carrying the economy. Any commentary on why that’s failing?
- dehrmann 7mo agoThere was a strike. That particular number is probably worth ignoring.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo agoAh, this makes sense [1]. [1] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/31000-kaiser-workers-end-strike-mental-health-clinicians-back-walkout-6-notes/ https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/31000-kaiser-worker...
- zzleeper 7mo agoSad/funny that your comment is at the bottom. Workers on strike are classified as not employed, so yeah we should ignore that category
- dehrmann 7mo agoIt's one of the challenges with data. It's technically accurate, and it's useful for trends like productivity and output, but only marginally useful as a gauge of the health of the economy. You also have to remember it for the next jobs report.
- nyeah 7mo agoMaybe intentionally destroying our own country is a bad idea.
- dehrmann 7mo agoWhat are the current theories about why the perceived(?) healthy unemployment rate is lower post-covid? 4.4% is spectacularly good by historic standards. This has also been the slowest medium-term upswing in unemployment since WWII. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE I'd ignore the headline number and wonder what the longer term trend means because this isn't normal.
- kasey_junk 7mo agoMacro demographics. Boomers are retiring and requiring healthcare in historic numbers.
- dehrmann 7mo agoThat doesn't show up as unemployment, though. It might mean the economy is getting worse faster than that graph, but boomers retiring is dampening the increase.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- kasey_junk 7mo agoBoomers leaving (and being replaced) shows up in the jobs number, but not the unemployment number. So job “growth” is overstated because much of that growth is macro demographic replacement. But them being out of the workforce entirely shows up in the looking for work numbers decreasing. Therefore their leaving is accentuating 1 and dampening the other. So more non-producers, who require non-productive health care means that lower unemployment doesn’t feel like a good economy. Thus their leaving healthy post covid number but other measures seeming bad.
- Induane 7mo agoThe unemployment rate is somewhat useful in aggregate but has a limitation in that it doesn't account for people who have given up seeking employment. Essentially it is a measure of the percentage of the workforce that has a job. This stat makes a lot of sense for the most part. A stay-at-home parent isn't really unable to find work so shouldn't be counted in unemployment stats (for example). But sometimes you miss the folk that have become disheartened. I know a few of those folk right now in the tech industry who want to look but just aren't. Our stats miss "mood" in a sense (hard to quantify of course). But right now the mood is bad.
- blurbleblurble 7mo agoAt this point it seems absolutely intentional. Where I live they're trying to block multiple billions of dollars of already allocated money used to fund county hospitals. Accelerationists in office explicitly declaring intent to bring about Armageddon via official channels? Why would they care about keeping people employed when they don't seem to think there's room for everyone to even live? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran...
- 0xy 7mo ago[flagged]
- ActorNightly 7mo agoYou realize your propaganda bullshit is very easy to spot, right? Spout off a bunch of random disconnected facts, in hope that nobody fact checks them, hoping that people forget that pedofile who tried to coup the government is our President right now.
- 0xy 7mo ago>in hope that nobody fact checks them I'd love you to fact check them, but I'm a little puzzled why you didn't already. You appear to have just made unfounded claims about the accuracy of my claims with no counterpoints. Maybe you can fix that? On chicken prices, I used the Bureau of Labor Statistics. [1] On the fraudulent broadband scheme, I used Politico's coverage of the $42B fraud. [2] On the EV scheme, Reuters covered this $7.5B scheme's many problems. [3] I eagerly await your rebuttal of BLS, Politico and Reuters! [1] https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-price-index-average-price-data.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-pri... [2] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/04/biden-broadband-program-swing-state-frustrations-00175845 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/04/biden-broadband-pro... [3] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/slow-charge-point-rollout-risks-stalling-us-ev-sales-momentum-maguire-2024-10-09/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/slow-charge-poin...
- kylehotchkiss 7mo agoI find this policy of "reduce housing prices by economic catastrophe" instead of just like making the army core of engineers build 2-4 million housing units to be like hitting a nail with a jackhammer
- verytrivial 7mo agoThat's a fine economic statistics operation you've got there. Shame if something were to happen to it.
- bryanrasmussen 7mo agoI didn't expect a precise number of course, so in that way it's true, and frankly I expected this sooner, but those little acknowledgements out of the way I'd say I sure expected it and so did a lot of other people.
- lgleason 7mo agoSo the only golden age is the gaudy gold he added to the white house and the profits for all of his oligarch friends/defense contractors etc. while everybody else suffers. Let them eat cake.
- thcipriani 7mo agoMeanwhile, the ADP report[0]: +63k in Feb. [0]: <https://adpemploymentreport.com/ https://adpemploymentreport.com/>
- phendrenad2 7mo agoAnd if they're saying 92k, just wait until the obligatory 3-months-later revision where they say "once again, oopsie, we miscounted, it's actually 50% worse".
- JimmaDaRustla 7mo agoBullish
- elif 7mo ago"unexpected" only because the agencies responsible for forecasting are partisan yes men.
- drivebyhooting 7mo agoJobs is one facet. But I’d curious to know about inputs and outputs. Is the US producing more or fewer widgets? Are we generating and consuming more or less energy? How are imports and exports? If inputs and outputs are staying the same then it would support the narrative of increased efficiency and elimination of BS jobs.
- veryemartguy 7mo ago[flagged]
- bitfilped 7mo ago"Unexpected" Wow, BBC is a joke of a news organization.
- gdilla 7mo agothis was entirely expected. but americans accept the gaslighting from the orange administration.
- DirkH 7mo agoI wonder if there is any evidence of the Iran war starting, in part, as a distraction from this. I recall reading somewhere that there is a long historical trend of countries and empires going to war - so much so that some of it can even be predictably modelled - once economic realities and discontent at home get too bad. War then acts as a form of national unity that helps keep the current elite in power.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]