The Employment Situation for February 2025

Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from January 2025 that was published in February 2025. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

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US employers added 143 thousand jobs last month, which fell a bit short from the almost 170 thousand that economists were forecasting.

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At the same time, the national unemployment rate average ticked down by one-tenth of a point to 4% for the first time since May of 2024.

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Beyond the slight movement in unemployment rate and increase in payroll figures, however, the labor market showed little movement whatsoever, with no significant change in labor force participation rate (62.6%) or in the number of people working part-time but who want full-time work (4.5 million). 

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There was similarly little movement among the long-term unemployed (1.4 million) or the number of people who want a job but haven’t actively looked for one in the last 4 weeks (5.5 million) - only a relatively small portion of which had actively sought work in the last year (1.6 million) - all of which held steady from month to month.

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Although the fewer than 150 thousand net jobs added across the US last month is down substantially from the more than 250 thousand net jobs recorded the month before, there were several industries that performed in line with expectations.

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The healthcare industry reported the largest net increase in jobs last month with plus 44 thousand, which is slightly below the 55 thousand healthcare jobs averaged each month in 2024.

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The retail industry had the next largest net job increase with plus 34 thousand, followed by government jobs at plus 32 thousand, then the social assistance industry, which grew by 22 thousand payroll entries.

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Mining was the only industry that saw a net job loss over the month (minus 8,000), while the remainder of industries remained essentially unchanged, including the construction industry, the manufacturing industry, the wholesale trade, the information industry, the transportation and warehousing industry, the leisure and hospitality industry, the professional and business services industry, and the financial activities industry.

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Average hourly pay rose by about 17 cents to $35.87 per hour (an increase of 0.5%), while the average workweek length fell slightly to 34.1 hours per week. 

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Mployer’s Take

This BLS report contains the final batch of data collected under the Biden administration, which saw the US unemployment rate drop by 2.2% under its watch, down from 6.2% in February of 2021 to 4% as of January 2025.

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This report also marks the 49th consecutive month of net job gains, which is the second longest streak of positive job growth since these numbers have been tracked. 

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In fact, the only longer period of consecutive job growth in recorded US history occurred between October of 2010 and February of 2020, just as the pandemic was ramping up in the US, and were it not for the COVID employment dip which was accompanied by a historically quick recovery, the current ongoing streak of job growth and the last would be almost 4 times longer than the next longest streak.

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Given that the 5th longest streak is 44 consecutive months of job growth, even getting to 40 consecutive months of growth is historically noteworthy and hitting 50 or more months of job growth has only happened once before, about 10 years ago. If the US maintains its current trajectory and achieves positive job growth again next month, that will be the second occurrence ever of more than 50 consecutive months of job growth, and those streaks have essentially occurred back to back.

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All that to say, while the current job growth streak is not exactly unprecedented, it's pretty close and the streak does become more of an outlier with each passing month.

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With the transfer of power comes questions about how trade agreement negotiations and immigration policy orders will ultimately play out, for example, and those outcomes will affect labor and employment issues both directly and indirectly.

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While those outcomes remain to be seen, however, the uncertainty itself can in many cases have a negative drag on economic views, perhaps as evidenced in the notable downturn in consumer sentiment of late, but it’s likely that sentiment will rise or fall with economic performance, and those numbers will start coming in next month.

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Check out the Mployer blog here.