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U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal
- Simulacra 2mo agoInteresting, this article doesn't seem to mention the layoffs from the tech industry. Which, if you look at the numbers, sort of make up the bulk of it.
- jeffbee 2mo agoTech sector is not the bulk of it, many sectors doing worse and that is why they got the headlines. "Financial Activities" supersector was terrible this month. Another reason is there is not an umbrella "tech" sector in the NAICS, so it's harder to report on.
- emp17344 2mo agoNo, this is wrong. If you read the report, the bulk of the job contraction was in industries entirely divorced from the tech sector. I don’t understand why you would make this comment without even reading the article, let alone the report itself.
- recsv-heredoc 2mo ago"sudden"
- lionkor 2mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- actionfromafar 2mo agoI predict the numbers will look good after November. Maybe not reality but the numbers.
- eth0up 2mo agoMy thought exactly. I began rapidly recalling the hundreds of sources foreseeing this well in advance, citing it, raising alarm, and being ignored. I guess we are supposed to take numbers at face value, disregard what generated them and why, accept what they imply as presented, and never question it. Then we must patiently withhold intelligence, wait for sanctioned admission, then finally consider what we already knew. Suddenly, Rome collapsed. Edit: Don't take the flagging to heart. If you dig, you will find a thousand exceptions made where the single-word comment fit the narrative and endured. This comment will be flagged too.
- wat10000 2mo agoJust look at a graph from the last few years. It bounces up and down a lot, but there's a pretty clear downward trend line, and it's been around zero for over a year, with many individual months slightly above or slightly below. https://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_CES0000000001_2021_2026_all_period_M07_net_1mth.gif https://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers...
- ceejayoz 2mo agoNote, also: > In yet another troubling sign for the labor market, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that it revised down the prior two months by a combined 103,000. May’s jobs total was cut by 66,000 to 129,000 total jobs added, while June’s total was lowered by 37,000 to a total gain of 57,000.
- bix6 2mo agoThese guys are just nonstop liars. Print the headline, revise when no one is looking.
- ceejayoz 2mo agoTo be fair, revisions are very normal, because the more reliable data (tax filings, for example) comes in later. https://xcancel.com/ernietedeschi/status/1951721848393105573 https://xcancel.com/ernietedeschi/status/1951721848393105573
- bwat49 2mo ago[flagged]
- lionkor 2mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- forlorn_mammoth 2mo agoWhat is also interesting is that the only sector thad added jobs was health care.
- pixelesque 2mo agoIt was the same in June I think...
- dgellow 2mo agoThat has been the case for most of the year IIRC
- jmuguy 2mo agoThis has been the case in several recent reports. It really ought to put to bed the idea that Trump was somehow going to be "good for business" and bring back manufacturing. At best all he's done is create a ton of uncertainty, at worst he's actively harmed massive swaths of American businesses with tariffs, war, and gutting the federal workforce and programs that indirectly supported a ton of businesses.
- eigenspace 2mo agoHealthcare has consistently been one of the biggest drivers of US GDP and job growth numbers for years now. This is one of the major things that has helped explain why US consumer sentiment has been so out of step with headline numbers like employment, consumer spending, and GDP. It also helps explain why there's so many economists are saying they see limited evidence of a "K-shaped economy", and say they see positive numbers throughout the distribution. It's very difficult to choose not to buy healthcare.
- glaslong 2mo agoSo perhaps we'll never get to a better healthcare+insurance market (nee "Free") through government, but eventually we will just all work in healthcare, and barter our nursing and dental skills in secret away from the insurance coders.
- stego-tech 2mo agoVertical Thinkers: “Who could’ve seen this coming when all the data looks good?!” Lateral Thinkers: quietly sipping tea, nursing our wounds from layoffs, lamenting another unheard Cassandra moment. Basically sums up the mood, I find. Don’t worry, we’re always steeping a fresh pot for the new club members when stories like these hit the wire.
- throwfaraway135 2mo ago[flagged]
- ethagnawl 2mo agoAnd, as a result, the market is ... up?
- mapontosevenths 2mo agoI wonder if this is the evidence of the labor market decoupling from "the economy" in terms of economic productivity? Folks keep predicting it. Maybe it's starting?
- MSFT_Edging 2mo agoMaybe we can finally reach communism by first getting together and all agreeing "the economy" isn't a science and if we all just believe really hard, numbers can go up forever, then we won't even need money!
- JKCalhoun 2mo agoI think we're there already?
- Jensson 2mo agoIt only works until people try to withdraw money that doesn't exist. The less people believe the earlier that happens, but it will happen sooner or later.
- micromacrofoot 2mo agoNever withdraw money, only take out loans! the survivors will sort it out, or not... we'll be dead so who cares.
- Lord-Jobo 2mo agoPromote this man immediately to the head of our new megacorp Walmart-Exxon-Lockheed-Yum.
- parineum 2mo ago
- 1over137 2mo agoMeanwhile Canada added 75,000 new jobs in July. Perhaps Trump's tariff scheme is not working so well after all. https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/9.7299225 https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/9.7299225
- Jeremy1026 2mo agoNo one with at least two brain cells to rub together thought the tariffs was going to make anything better.
- mapontosevenths 2mo agoI suspect that even his proponents knew better, they just didn't care as much about the economy as they did culture wars nonsense and religious woo-woo.
- hilariously 2mo agoIt's not a "suspect" thing, it has been widely reported up and down the chain there is basically no support for tariffs, especially when the economic reality hit. The only supporter is trump, and he can do whatever he wants as king baby.
- rozal 2mo ago[flagged]
- root_axis 2mo agoTo be fair, a plurality of voters care more about the culture war than the economy as well.
- amanaplanacanal 2mo agoThat goes way back to before the founding. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It doesn't mention the right to make a buck, though it's probably implicit.
- catigula 2mo agoThe great reversal is happening. It was about time to quell the bubble-sayers.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- HarHarVeryFunny 2mo agoThese jobs lost/gained and unemployment statistics, especially on a monthly basis, and when the numbers are so small, are just noise. Seasonal adjustments alone (baseline assumptions on how many people should be employed) make them meaningless, as does the government definition of being unemployed or looking for work. As far as the government is concerned if you have been looking for a job for so long and/or are so discouraged that you stop looking, then you are no longer "unemployed" since you are not looking for a job. If you are software engineer who has not been able find a software job, and are now flipping burgers to at least have some income, then you have also dropped off the government stats since you now have a job. And then you have the current president's habit of just lying about everything, and threatening anyone who doesn't support his lies, and it seems we have truly entered a post-truth world where "alternate facts" rule the day. When you read headlines of companies laying off thousands of employees, that's real. When the government says they've retroactively adjusted their seasonally adjusted fake news, then not so much.
- gruez 2mo ago>As far as the government is concerned if you have been looking for a job for so long and/or are so discouraged that you stop looking, then you are no longer "unemployed" since you are not looking for a job. > ... >When you read headlines of companies laying off thousands of employees, that's real. When the government says they've retroactively adjusted their seasonally adjusted fake news, then not so much. The BLS keeps track of the discouraged workers as well, and it's not significantly different than previous trends. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/alternative-measures-of-labor-underutilization.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/alternative-... >And then you have the current president's habit of just lying about everything, and threatening anyone who doesn't support his lies, and it seems we have truly entered a post-truth world where "alternate facts" rule the day. You don't see the irony here with what you're doing?
- gwerbin 2mo agoAt this point it's fair to doubt just about any claim or number that comes out of the federal government. I'm sure there are still thousands of honest researchers and professionals at all levels of the executive branch, but over the past year so many of them have been pushed out and so many more have been under pressure to produce only politically-approved output, that the federal government is becoming increasingly unreliable as an institution.
- mindcrime 2mo agoGuess it's time for Trump to fire another BLS director and find one who's better at cooking the books...
- jimmydoe 2mo agogovt is resetting the baseline now, so we will see some good numbers in November. it's all about optics for mid term.
- jordanb 2mo agoMaybe. But I think the government could just lie about both quarters and then restate after the election.
- bitmasher9 2mo agoThe worse Q2 looks the bigger improvement a bogus Q3 will look.
- kennywinker 2mo agoWish i had your optimism.
- m-hodges 2mo agoNo. Very bad economic numbers in August before a midterm is not a cunning political optics move.
- gcanyon 2mo agoIt doesn’t matter whether it is a good move; just whether they think it’s a good move.
- m-hodges 2mo agoThey don’t. They aren’t faking the BLS numbers as an electoral strategy. No one at WH or NRCC or CLF are rubbing their hands together as if this is all according to plan.
- not_a_bot_4sho 2mo agoI'm surprised by the conspiratorial comments here like this is some sort of 4D chess move. *It's not.* This is chickens coming home to roost from US actions in Iran, with tariffs, and other things introducing economic uncertainty. As you alluded to; this is terrible for Republicans in power. And quite useful for Democrats.
- cs02rm0 2mo agoStill has a long way to go to catch us up on the other side of the pond.
- debo_ 2mo agoMeanwhile, Canada adds 75k jobs in the same month. > Gains were focused on the private sector, with strength in wholesale and retail trade, finance and insurance, and professional and scientific services. Public sector jobs fell by 14,500 amid an official bid to cut government spending. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/economy/article-canada-labour-force-survey-jobs-unemployment-rate-july-2026/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/economy/article-can...
- dismalaf 2mo agoYeah, our unemployment rate is still higher though with basically no productivity growth since 2015 (see link). Maybe 2 years straight of these job gains and then we can talk. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3610070601&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=01&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2015&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=01&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2026&referencePeriods=20150101%2C20260101 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=361007... https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260807/dq260807a-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260807/dq260...
- debo_ 2mo agoYes, agreed.
- fleroviumna 2mo ago[dead]
- avoidstupidity 2mo ago[dead]
- bekimbacaj 2mo agofirstly :: "economy" cannot lose jobs because it doesn't have any. Secondly :: there is absolutely no way for you to know it.
- cyanmoonx 2mo agoThat’s just nitpicking words and yes you can tell from payroll
- bekimbacaj 2mo agoThanks you for your kind reply. Calling it nitpicking doesn't make it untrue and payrolls are not public. To come up with factual data, one needs do some investigative journalism, and nbcnews' not one of them.
- cyanmoonx 2mo agoI need you to bring the big guns to the revolution. Fact check your shit. Be bold, but be correct
- bekimbacaj 2mo ago[dead]
- wat10000 2mo agoWhich is it, is it unknowable, or is it certain that it can't be?
- bekimbacaj 2mo ago[dead]
- cyanmoonx 2mo agoSudden reversal? It’s been the apocalypse for several years with each year getting worse
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- jvdvegt 2mo agohttps://archive.is/bsnvr https://archive.is/bsnvr
- _tgxm 2mo agoI have recently started an experiment tracking a sample of 5000 employers in US and I see a bounce last week after a brief lull in july. I am not sure if there is a strong downward trend. https://corvi.careers/reports/usa-weekly-job-openings-report/ https://corvi.careers/reports/usa-weekly-job-openings-report...
- mixdup 2mo agoIt's tough to trust job openings. It is a fact that some number of job postings are ghost jobs that don't exist. Either they're scams from impersonators or the companies are trying to keep a good public face, but many openings sit for MONTHS which just does not line up with the anecdotal evidence of people going 6-12 months without an interview much less an offer
- eightysixfour 2mo agoI think that is slightly blunted by this person looking at the week over week delta.
- mixdup 2mo agomaybe, but ghost listings have to be posted at some point, and who knows how long the companies want to let them go (and sometimes they expire and someone needs to refresh them) they're not all ghost jobs, and there is probably a base level of noise there you can ignore, but the variability doesn't mean the data is great and perfect
- DonsDiscountGas 2mo agoTrue, but is there any reason to think this dishonesty varies over time? The trend could be informative even if the raw numbers are nonsense
- _tgxm 2mo agoYup, and my data only captures a part of professional job market which itself is small part of labor market. I'd use this as additional data point to other sources to correlate etc. However, the experiment is mostly to test my own thesis that unless there is a major event like covid, these trends are really hard to spot.
- astro1234 2mo agoAs a data scientist it is very frustrating to see a consistent lack of error bars on these numbers or any discussion about the magnitude of uncertainty around them by all news reports every time these numbers get released
- renegade-otter 2mo agoThe numbers are as good as they can get with hard manual work that goes into compiling them. The problem is that small businesses lag by 1-2 months reporting them, so the initial number being reported is almost always irrelevant, as it mostly applies to numbers coming out of larger corporations.
- jstanley 2mo ago> The numbers are as good as they can get That doesn't mean they don't warrant error bars. Error bars aren't there to show that you didn't do a good job collecting the data, they're there to show your level of uncertainty.
- vlovich123 2mo agoI would say the initial numbers should be embargoed until the number is reliable. People don’t understand error bars and reporting can more easily manipulate the current situation without outright lying.
- twosdai 2mo agoBoth? I don't think error bars and waiting to release data until more accurate are mutually exclusive.
- vlovich123 2mo agoThat’s what I meant. There should be error bars to reflect uncertainty of the inherent data, but they should wait until all the data that could change things comes in rather than using projections which always drastically change
- mapping365 2mo agoI love how this is immediately used as an excuse to reinflate the AI bubble. Silicon Valley and Wall Street are just begging for backlash.
- surgical_fire 2mo agoTech companies are mired in debt. They need interest rates to go down. Higher unemployment makes it harder to raise interest rates.
- Varelion 2mo agoWho actually believes these numbers?
- purplemoonx 2mo ago[flagged]
- zuzululu 2mo agowith inflation under control there is little incentive to raise rates and not enough to cut, consensus is that fed will hold in the meantime stock market is going to do another major boom cycle
- paulryanrogers 2mo agoInflation of certain luxuries may be under control. That's cold comfort to households with two jobs per adult just to make rent+healthcare+food. > in the meantime stock market is going to do another major boom cycle Citation needed
- zuzululu 2mo agono doubt there's been a rise in costs for the average joe but that's not what the fed targets no citation needed, its common knowledge that rates drive stock market by acting as a gate to control money flowing between money market and stock market but to explain that is really not my responsibility, a very worrying sign that many Americans are seemingly not aware how much of sway the Federal Reserve play on the global economy.
- paulryanrogers 2mo ago> no doubt there's been a rise in costs for the average joe but that's not what the fed targets What matters most to people? Fed targets and cherry picked inflation indicators? Or the fact that they have to move to afford housing, take on multiple jobs for healthcare and food, can't afford to have more kids or have kids living with them into the kids' late 20s and 30s? > no citation needed, its common knowledge that rates drive stock market by acting as a gate I guess you know what the fed is going to do and how the market will react. When that's public knowledge then it's already priced in. Not that regular folks can afford to invest since ~92% of the market is already owned by the top 10%.
- blurbleblurble 2mo agoAll part of the misanthropic plan?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- nunez 2mo ago> The BLS said employment contracted the most in “local government education,” which declined by 50,000 roles, likely reflecting teachers during summer break. This is not entirely accurate. AFAIK, teachers usually remain on payroll throughout the summer. This stat _might_ be talking about contractual teaching roles, like adjuncts or subs, but it's hard to say from that BLS category.
- Jcampuzano2 2mo agoThis is correct, teachers don't just stop getting paid and lose all benefits every summer (my best friend is a teacher and so is his brother), but at the same time it seems tons of schools now prefer (or are only able to find positions for) short contracts, more subs and temporary positions etc. Especially if its not in a well funded area.
- skinfaxi 2mo agoThe cost to municipalities/towns for medical insurance has skyrocketed which I think is a contributor (not to mention pension obligations for retirees).
- JeremyNT 2mo agoNot to mention, if it's seasonal for any reason then it's something that should be baked into the cyclical expectations already. It's like reporting that Spirit of Halloween employees accounted for the biggest retailer layoffs in November. It's a totally useless statistic that tells you nothing about what might really be going on that month that's abnormal compared to baseline.
- jborden13 2mo agoI don't think it's attributable to summer break. Didn't ~1,100K teachers quit in Fort Worth, TX due (in part) to a rise in political interference?
- dominotw 2mo agono they didnt
- Waterluvian 2mo agoMeanwhile Canada is up 75,000 jobs in July. Can't wait to see the next tantrum America throws our way. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-jobs-july-2026-9.7299225 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-jobs-july-2026-9.729...
- throwaway29812 2mo ago[dead]
- okdood64 2mo agoSorry, what's the connection here?
- gf263 2mo agoWhat’s the connection between the two most intertwined economies on planet earth?
- bryanlarsen 2mo agoThat looking at monthly numbers is stupid? The US has had significantly more job growth in 2026 than Canada has. The July numbers are convergence to a roughly common mean.
- Waterluvian 2mo agoIt is stupid. But the connection is that the Americans do international politics in an abusive way now. There is a very real possibility that their leader will see domestic bad number and foreign good number and throw a fit and look for something or someone to beat on. By all means, someone please tell him that looking at the numbers is stupid. In particular, the Americans have been throwing endless tantrums Canada's way. This week we're "nasty people" because we refuse to become an ecnomimc vassal state. I'm sure we'll hear more tariff sabre rattling from the Americans soon.
- kylehotchkiss 2mo ago
- ploden 2mo agoThe deficit is 6% of GDP. Economic growth is 2%, if that. If the Democrats win the House and reduce spending, look out below.
- parineum 2mo agoOf the two parties, only one ever even says they want to reduce spending. Neither ever do.
- ploden 2mo agoThe deficit fell dramatically 2009-2015.
- parineum 2mo agoBut the debt rose https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/NationalDebt_v02_DP_1684339148116_hpEmbed_1x1_992.jpg https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/NationalDebt_v02_DP_16843391...
- nitwit005 2mo agoTechnically yes, but you can clearly see the growth slow to essentially zero during part of the late Clinton years in that chart.
- xboxnolifes 2mo agoYes, that's what a deficit does until it becomes a surplus. Debt cannot go down until the deficit is gone.
- parineum 2mo agoThe deficit rose dramatically when someone printed a bunch of money to give to the too-big-to-fail banks. Sure technically the deficit dropped after that but that's like ne saying it's an improvement that I only gambled away my car since last year I gambled away my house.
- vannevar 2mo agoI would hardly call it a sudden reversal, looking at the downward trend in the numbers over the last six months or so. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/non-farm-payrolls https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/non-farm-payrolls
- ismailmaj 2mo agoGiven the trend of revisions, I wouldn't be surprised if the real loss is around 6 figures, May 2026 revision went from 172k to 63k.
- therealpygon 2mo agoPlus, many people also seem to not realize that our baseline is needing to create around 150k jobs a month just to keep the same unemployment rate. So in this current version of paper reality we lost 20k jobs and also failed to employ another 150k new workers, increasing unemployment by 170k. And I suspect those numbers are generously offset by people who have been forced to take significantly lower wages just to find work.
- tetris11 2mo agoWhat happened between February and March?
- vannevar 2mo agoApparently there were healthcare strikes in February that depressed the numbers there, which were resolved by March. Also maybe data center and World Cup hospitality hiring. But hard to say. As others have noted, there are big error bands on these numbers.
- brazukadev 2mo agowow this thread made me realize the level of manipulation in HN discussions. The amount of bots posting comments passing as real is staggering.