Stock market data is displayed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on March 6, 2026. All three major indexes continued to fall at the open as oil prices rose amid the war with Iran and faint jobs reports. (Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The United States lost 92,000 jobs in February, sending unemployment up slightly, according to the latest employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The report showed non-farm job losses for the third time in the last five months and highlighted a continuing “downward trend” in the information sector and federal government employment. According to the office, the federal workforce is down 11% from its peak in October 2024. The report also noted a decline in health care jobs “reflecting strike activity.”
Unemployment rose to 4.4% from 4.3% last year January, and rates remained higher for women, teenagers, and non-white workers.
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Administration officials blamed job losses on winter weather on the East Coast and labor conflicts among health care workers on the West Coast.
But Democrats have faulted President Donald Trump’s policies, including military action in Iran and the reimposition of tariffs after the U.S. Supreme Court found many of Trump’s taxes on foreign goods illegal.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday’s report is a “blaring alarm that Donald Trump’s economy is rapidly deteriorating” and speculated that the nearly week-long war in Iran will only make the situation worse.
“We have now seen job losses in two of the last three months and an economy teetering on the brink of recession,” Schumer said in a Friday morning statement. “Tariffs are driving up costs, gas prices are soaring, and jobs are evaporating: Trump’s Republican agenda is failing the American people, and without an immediate change of course, the economy could collapse.”
The unexpected report, coupled with uncertainty over war with Iran, rocked U.S. markets on Friday morning, sending all indexes lower, according to the daily update from Eric Criscuolo of the New York Stock Exchange.
According to Criscuolo, economists estimated that the number of jobs in the U.S. would enhance by about 59,000 in February. Moreover, the report contrasts sharply with January data, which showed that the economy gained 130,000 jobs, According to to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Trump officials are bullish
The administration, however, is downplaying the negative reports, attributing the penniless report to ice and snow storms in February and month-long strike by Kaiser Permanente health care professionals.
“While record strikes and bad winter weather caused nonfarm payrolls to decline in February, the unemployment rate remained steady and there are several positive signs for our economy that continue to show that American workers are recovering from the mess left by Biden,” Labor Secretary Lorie Chavez DeReemer said in a statement.
She added that the administration’s massive tax and spending cuts bill passed in July is beneficial to the economy.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, he said CNBC Friday: “I think we need to start doing with these jobs numbers, at least on the wages side, taking an average over a few months.”
“And if you take the average over several months, last month we had a surprisingly positive result, and this month a surprisingly negative result. But on average, that’s more or less what we expect,” he said, adding that the acute decline in immigration is leading to “threshold employment” in the US
No growth
Economists warn that the jobs report is based on a negative economic outlook for the country.
“While it is never wise to load too much data from one month, this morning’s report showing a decline in nonfarm payrolls and a rise in the unemployment rate comes at a difficult time, with inflation still above target and the oil price shock threatening to push inflation further,” said Daniel Hornung, a fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
“The report complicates the Fed’s efforts to keep both unemployment and inflation low and makes it more difficult for the administration to argue over the medium term that its policies are leading to the increases or improvements in living standards that have long been promised,” said Hornung, deputy director of the National Economic Council under President Joe Biden.
David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, called the report “weak.”
“We’re not really seeing any job growth at all in this economy,” Kelly he said CNBC on Friday morning. “But because immigration has turned 180 degrees here and we have a huge decline in the labor force – which is keeping the unemployment rate from skyrocketing here – but we have a very, very slow economy here.”
