The February 2026 Jobs Report & January 2026 JOLTS: The Current U.S. Employment Situation

Industry Insights

The BLS’s February 2026 Employment Situation Summary is out: total nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 92,000 jobs and the unemployment rate increased slightly to 4.4%. A key driver of payroll losses was strikes within health care at Kaiser Permanente that have since ended.

Change in Nonfarm Payroll Employment

October ’25	--
November ’25	64K
December ’25	50K
January ’26	130K
February ’26	-92K

Unemployment Rate

October ’25	--
November ’25	4.6%
December ’25	4.4%
January ’26	4.3%
February ’26	4.4%

January 2026 JOLTS Summary

Per the January 2026 JOLTS, released Friday, March 13, 2026, job openings increased to 6.9 million (exceeding estimates of 6.7 million), hires remained nearly unchanged at 5.3 million, total separations decreased to 5.1 million, quits decreased to 3.1 million, and layoffs and discharges decreased to 1.6 million.

Industries that saw significant increases in hires included professional and business services (+35,000), accommodation and food services (+27,000), and construction (+23,000); hires in transportation, warehousing, and utilities decreased by 67,000.

Number of Unemployed Persons

October ’25	--
November ’25	7.8M
December ’25	7.5M
January ’26	7.4M
February ’26	7.6M

Additional February 2026 Jobs Report & January 2026 JOLTS Takeaways

The quits and hires rates both held steady at 2.0% and 3.3%, respectively.
Wages increased by $0.15, or 0.4%, to $37.32.
December and January’s employment numbers were both revised down by 65,000 and 4,000, respectively.

February 2026 Jobs Data by Industry

As mentioned above, employment in health care decreased primarily due to strikes. Normally, the health care and social assistance category overall sees significant growth month over month. Many other industries we track also saw declines, notably leisure and hospitality, and federal government employment continued to trend down.

Change in Employment by Industry

Industry	December	January	February
Construction	-11K	33K	-11K
Manufacturing	-8K	5K	-12K
Motor Vehicles & Parts	-0.7K	0.9K	-1.6K
Retail Trade	-25K	1.2K	2.3K
Transportation & Warehousing	-6.6K	-11.2K	-11.3K
Utilities	0.8K	1K	1.3K
Information	0K	-12K	-11K
Financial Activities	7K	-22K	10K
Professional & Business Services	-9K	34K	-5K
Health Care & Social Assistance	38.5K	123.5K	-18.6K
Leisure & Hospitality	47K	1K	-27K
Other Services	5K	7K	8
Government	13K	-42K	-6K

“And while unemployment has remained reasonably low, hiring has been slow, leaving experts to use words such as ‘frozen’ and ‘stagnant’ to describe the labor market. That situation has only been made more complicated by the U.S. war on Iran, which has driven oil prices upward, raising fresh fears of renewed inflation,” said Steve Kopak of NBC News.

Austan Gooslbee, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, also said in an interview that it was important not to overreact to one month of data, and added, “We’ve upped the uncertainty quotient a bit on multiple dimensions, and we’re just going to have to see how that plays out. Stagflationary-direction shocks are the hardest thing that the central bank has to deal with, because there’s not an obvious playbook.”

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