Employers across the US added 151,000 jobs in February. It was below economists’ forecasts and pointed to a slower labor market amid signs of slowing economic growth.
Numbers
Economists predicted last month that the economy had added 160,000 jobs, according to a poll by FactSet.
The unemployment rate last month was 4.1%, slightly higher than the 4% forecast by the economists voted by FactSet.
Although employment has been eased since the number of 323,000 new jobs in December, the labor market remains resilient in early 2025, experts say.
What that means
Job figures for February show that the labor market “indicating signs of weakness associated with employment across the sector,” said Joe Gaffoglio, CEO of Mutual of America Capital Management, in an email.
He added, “it suggests a worsening indicator of degradation, such as employment intent, new job listings and temporary staffing.”
In particular, widespread and continuous cuts across the government sector have not been reflected in today’s report, according to Andy Stetner, an unemployment insurance expert at the Century Foundation. He noted that this is because unemployment claims against federal workers could take weeks for them to appear in official government data.
The full impact of these cuts is not yet visible in data, but federal employment fell 10,000 last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. There are over 2 million federal workers in the United States.
Layoffs all over the US Last month’s spike To their highest level since 2020, led by the firing of federal workers ordered by Elon Musk’s Government Efficiency Bureau, Or Doge, Autplacement Firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday.
Employers cut more than 172,000 jobs last month, up 245% from January, doubling the number announced in the same month a year ago, the company said. This has the highest monthly layoffs since July 2020 when nearly 263,000 cuts were announced, the company added.
What experts say
Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector bond investments at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said a slightly weaker February employment report could encourage people to resume cutting benchmark rates.
January’s Fed Apply the brake Quoting sustained inflation, about interest rate reductions. But Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell shows that central banks are looking closely at the labour market for signs of weakness.
FARD will receive another key economic data ahead of the next rate decision meeting, where the consumer price index is expected to be released on March 12th. CPI has increased 2.9% last month, potentially slightly eased from its 3% pace in January.
President Trump’s tariffs are expected Raise consumer pricesAlthough they won’t show up in inflation data for months as Trump suspended 25% tariffs in Mexico and Canada until early April on Thursday.
“Overall, this report is a sigh of relief for the Fed as it allows us to continue to sit on the sidelines of the next few meetings to assess the potential impact of inflation due to US tariff policies over the coming months.”
Currently, only one in 10 economists voted by Factset expect the Fed to cut fees at its March 19th meeting. About half of those voted to forecast fee cuts at a subsequent Fed meeting scheduled for May 7th.
“The growth in payroll was slightly surprised by the downside, with unemployment tying into justifying the momentum being built to resume the Fed’s disconnection cycle,” Rosner noted.
