Overview
- Revisions lowered October to a loss of 173,000 jobs and November to a 56,000 gain, leaving those two months 76,000 weaker than first reported.
- Total payroll growth in 2025 reached 584,000, far below 2024’s roughly 2.0 million and the weakest year for job creation since the pandemic disruptions.
- Economists cite broad tariffs, tighter immigration enforcement, and rising AI investment as key forces cooling hiring and keeping the labor market in a low-hire, low-fire mode.
- The BLS said it will modify its birth-death model starting in January to incorporate current sample information each month to improve job-count estimates.
- Hiring in December was concentrated in food services and healthcare, while retail and parts of manufacturing shed jobs, reflecting uneven labor demand across sectors.