John Puri writes for National Review Online about disturbing new economic data.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs report for February. … The numbers are not great, to put it kindly. From the Wall Street Journal: “The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, a sign that the job market continues to struggle across a broad range of sectors.”
Economists expected the labor market to cool off following January’s great jobs report, but not to turn negative as it did:
The employment numbers, reported Friday by the Labor Department, fell far short of January’s gain of 126,000 jobs. They were also much worse than the gain of 50,000 jobs that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see.
The unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4%. While that is still low, the Friday report exposes troubling weaknesses in a labor market that has shown very little employment growth in recent months.
There were warning signs. Employment growth over the past year has been driven largely by “care-economy” jobs in sectors like health care and social assistance, while jobs in other industries more reliant on private demand either declined or stayed flat. Now, health care and social assistance are experiencing some of the deepest job losses.
The statistical hits keep coming: Blame can’t be pinned on federal layoffs anymore, because, of the 92,000 net jobs lost in January, 86,000 were in the private economy. Downward revisions to December and January numbers lowered the U.S. jobs total by another 69,000. Manufacturing continues to bleed jobs, despite (or, partly because of) Trump’s tariffs that were supposed to spark an industrial resurgence. …
… What you see is a labor market that’s sputtering — some job gains one month, losses the next. Employment isn’t falling off a cliff, but it doesn’t have any momentum, either.
