The US economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, Labor Department data released Friday showed, sharply missing economists’ expectations and stalling the nascent hiring growth that started the year.
The unemployment rate edged up to 4.4%, while the share of people who have been without work for 27 weeks or more as a percentage of all unemployed hit 25.3%.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had anticipated 55,000 new positions after January’s surprise print of 130,000 payrolls. Those gains were also revised lower by 4,000 positions, while December’s previously reported addition of 48,000 jobs was updated to a loss of 17,000 — a combined culling of 69,000 roles from the last two employment reports.
Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, dubbed February’s data an “ugly report.”
“Big decline in nonfarm employment, a jump in the unemployment rate,” Berger wrote on X. “A win for ‘Team Doomer’, a whiff for ‘Team Reacceleration.'”
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Healthcare, the one sector that has been gaining amid otherwise stagnant job growth, saw job losses of 28,000 in February amid strike activity, the Labor Department said. Shruti Mishra, an economist at Bank of America Securities, had noted in a research report previewing the jobs data that a massive strike among Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in California and Hawaii could weigh on February’s payroll growth, since 31,000 employees walked off the job.
The whiplash of February’s report underscores just how reliant the US economy has become on the healthcare and social assistance sector as an engine for job growth. Indeed, social assistance — which includes home and personal care aides — was one of the few bright spots in last month’s data, gaining 9,000 roles.
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Emma Ockerman is a reporter covering the economy and labor for Yahoo Finance. You can reach her at emma.ockerman@yahooinc.com.
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