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US Had Almost No Job Growth in 2025 (nbcnews.com) 106

An anonymous reader shares a report: The U.S. economy experienced almost zero job growth in 2025, according to revised federal data. On a more encouraging note: hiring has picked up in 2026. Preliminary data had indicated that the U.S. economy added 584,000 jobs last year. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised that number after it received additional state data, and found that the labor market had added 181,000 jobs in all of 2025. This is far fewer than the 1.46 million jobs that were added in 2024.

One bright spot was last month, when hiring increased by 130,000 roles. This was significantly more than the 55,000 additions that had been expected by economists. "Job gains occurred in health care, social assistance, and construction, while federal government and financial activities lost jobs," BLS said in a statement.

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US Had Almost No Job Growth in 2025

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  • MAGA cult says (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:03PM (#65982940)

    Zero job growth is good for the economy

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:03PM (#65982942)
    no shit. Bad things are going to keep happening to you and your friends and family for the next 3 years.

    If the TDS morons can briefly come to their senses and at least stay home (I don't have any faith in them voting blue) we might be able to stop the worst of it.

    I don't think the old farts care though. They're old, in pain, angry, their kids don't visit and they wanna burn it all down.

    And thanks to 25 years of low birth rates there aren't enough kids to save us. We boned.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:27PM (#65983006)
      The people who are *really* going to get boned are the mainly his base. At this point, I'm all set, and I'm done caring about people who don't care enough to figure out which way to vote is best for them, let alone the country. At this point, the only way out of this is for there to be pain. Real, life-destroying, people losing their healthcare and their jobs pain. Apparently it's the only way people will learn. Let's learn the same lessons all over again that out great-grandparents did. If nothing else, it should be entertaining. I'd be a lot more upset about this shit if I had kids.
      • by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @06:09PM (#65983294)

        We have yet to reach the level of stove touching this nation requires. If anything I'm worried about the midterms in that the Democrats will be able to stop some of Trump's worst actions and his supporters will be allowed to move on yet again without suffering their justly deserved consequences.

        • If the Democrats get a large enough wave, ie. they get 60 senate seats and the house, do you think they will remove Trump and Vance from office, thus elevating the Speaker (who will be a Democrat, whoever that may be)?

          I mean, I can't see why they shouldn't do that, but do you think they will?

          • 60 isn't enough for removal, it's 67 Senators. Maybe in that case you can get 7 Republican Senators to go for it but I doubt it. If Democrats get a simple majority of be happy enough at this point considering the state of the Senate map.

            Now 60 lets them send bills to Trump's desk without blowing up the filibuster and that's something can/should do, just keep passing bills and either make him veto them or I bet he actually signs some of them.

          • Such a wave would be a start of the Seventh Party System. But I seriously doubt the survival of the Democratic party in it's current state. We may see splits in the parties and a reevaluation of two party elections on the national level. Things are going to be very chaotic over the next decade

          • by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @10:05PM (#65983788)

            If the Democrats get a large enough wave, ie. they get 60 senate seats and the house, do you think they will remove Trump and Vance from office, thus elevating the Speaker (who will be a Democrat, whoever that may be)?

            I mean, I can't see why they shouldn't do that, but do you think they will?

            ...are far more fun than ones who eat right, exercise, contribute to their 401k, avoid credit card debt and balance their checkbook. The Democrats are the responsible college girls with their natural tits and hair color. The Republican party has degraded into the equivalent of 19yo party girls with too many tattoos at Daytona Spring Break, who will be dancing the pole once they hit 21. Adulting sucks. Promising tax breaks you can't afford? That's a party! Rounding up the "illegals" with paramilitary force to round up some underpaid grocery baggers? That's fucking fun if you're inclined to such things. Some fucking braindead roid-abusing 72 yo anti-vax macho natural living fitness freak telling you to try all the supplements advertised on Joe Rogan's Podcast is far more fun than an actual physician telling you to take positive steps towards your health in conjunction with medical science.

            The Democrats are cursed with being a responsible adult party. They attempt to balance budgets and pass policy and make the world a better place. Some think they're too liberal (they're honestly VERY centrist if you listen to actual elected DNC politicians instead of twitter stereotypes provided by Fox News). They know that if they're elected, the adults that voted for them will hold them accountable. Republicans? The adults left that party LONG ago. Now they can promise whatever they want and do whatever they want and it will barely matter.

            Your tariff policy is a failure?...no problem.

            The economy is in a recession?...no problem.

            ICE raids are pointless, ineffective theater and insanely expensive?...no problem.

            Cowering to Russia, our long time foe, over and over?...no problem.

            The Democrats lose votes when they fail. Rational voters vote Democrat and don't when the Democrats don't deliver. Republicans appeal to emotion only, fail every time they're in office and basically never lose their voters...when they fail, it's because they fail so spectacularly and leave the economy in such shambles that the rational adults that are displeased with the Democrats get off their ass and vote. Their voters will NEVER abandon the party, no matter how badly they fail or deviate from the stated ideals of the voter. It's depressing, but it's life. There's no liberal or conservative anymore. Fox news destroyed 10-15 years ago. Now we have a party of grifters and loons and a party for everyone else. No one rationally benefits from Republican administrations beyond the top 1% of earners. Billionaires soak up all those tax breaks...everyone else watches their quality of live and income go down...institutions fail, etc. Nothing about today's Republican Party is actually conservative, certainly not fiscally.

            • The Democrats are cursed with being a responsible adult party.

              LOL, if they are so responsible, why do they ALWAYS provide the necessary votes to get the worst of the Republican agenda through? They confirmed RFK Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Go ahead and try to convince anyone but yourself that they are the adult party. They are playing a game of optics that appear to have fooled you with its illusory reality.

              The proof is in the pudding ;)

        • If anything I'm worried about the midterms in that the Democrats will be able to stop some of Trump's worst actions and his supporters will be allowed to move on yet again without suffering their justly deserved consequences.

          The thing I worry about is whether the Democrats can avoid shooting themselves in the foot between now and November. They've snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on more than one occasion in the past...

        • Don't wait for Dems to do the work. First, because they probably won't - the best analogy I've seen is Republicans are school shooters, Democrats are Uvalde cops. The bulk of them are useless, with a few traitors and a few clueful folks who can't do anything about the rest.

          But you don't need permission to make your own choices about who you surround yourself with. Many of us are collecting names and sharing with like-minded souls as we research. Start your own! LinkedIn is a fucking gold mine of people tel

      • This is pretty much the most fucked up part about the current situation. I've got a job, a 401k, and an investment portfolio that's doing just fine. I'd rather it be the case that we try to bring the base quality of life up in this country rather than that the top .001% in the country squeeze everything out of the rest of us, so I didn't vote for Trump. As a result, I'm told I'm a leftist/socialist by some of my siblings.

        My voting is more civic responsibility/ethics based, so apparently I'm not sane. I'm
    • Wrong. If we let it slide then it doesn't end in 3 years. Possible never ends. This is the fundamental mistake that the majority of people are making right now.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @07:12AM (#65984320) Homepage Journal

        I keep thinking "surely not" with Trump, and then he proves me wrong. I think the chances of him leaving office without violence are getting more and more remote now. Last time it was just his MAGA mob, but this time he has his brownshirts (ICE). They have a strong interest in keeping him in power, because once he's out the legal repercussions for their actions will start to kick in.

        • I don't consider our little problem over with Trump. History is full of strongmen, dictators, autocrats, and fascists that are replaced by a slightly different faction within their own group. People who think violence is power tend to be backstabbers. The moment that Trump seems weak, we'll see Vance and Rubio wrestle over the top billing. And someone who actually has respect on the far right, such as Glenn Youngkin or perhaps another, and likely will crush Vance or Rubio in the Primaries and capture the ri

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      There used to be an easy fix to low birth rates, immigrants. Lots people just wanted to come to the U.S., work hard, and see their kids do better than they. In short, the kind of Americans Americans wanted. That is in the past test and used to be what most Americans wanted. Then la Presidenta became the alleged president (alleged because he's just a useful idiot for Project 1825 (they lost two centuries) and the Kremlin). Now, the world hates the U.S. because he's such a jingoistic weirdo.

      He dd not spring f

  • by Anonymous Coward

    > One bright spot was last month, when hiring increased by 130,000 roles. This was significantly more than the 55,000 additions that had been expected by economists.

    Bet: in six months the BLS will "revise" this figure down to ~55k, at the same time they announce the chocolate ration will be reduced from thirty grams to twenty.

    Why is the media still treating this horseshit propaganda like it remotely reflects reality?

    • I suspect there will be some weasel wording around "gross" versus "net". A lot of people I know are getting laid off while their companies continue hiring. It's not even a shift in resources or skillsets, it's a true revolving door.

    • Why is the media still treating this horseshit propaganda like it remotely reflects reality?

      Take a look at who owns the media.

    • Bingo

      According to the BLS report the margin of error for the 130,000 jobs in Jan is +/- 127,000

    • Revisions are normal and not a sign of political interference (despite Trump's many attempts TO interfere). The preliminary numbers are based on relatively small survey samples, while the revisions are based on a much larger data set drawn from concrete data. https://journalistsresource.or... [journalistsresource.org]

  • by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:14PM (#65982970)

    "Still, Wednesday’s report also shows that not nearly as many jobs were added in 2025 as thought and last year will go down as the worst year for hiring since 2020, or since 2003 outside of a recession."

    Furthermore, most of the jobs added last month were in health care and social assistance which are generally regarded as less susceptible to economic cycles.

    The question is whether this is simply reflective of the trough of an economic cycle or more fundamental, lasting shifts due to tariffs, geopolitics, or technology/business shifts (like AI).

  • by Anonymous Coward
    slow day at the firehose I guess....
    • Yeah, bizarre things now qualify as "news for nerds" these days
      • The biggest world power royally fucking itself up and descending into fascism is news for everyone including nerds.

        • No, politics belongs in political publications. Which nerds can follow too, in case that's what they're interested in!
    • It's for political nerds.

      • It's nowhere near Daily Kos, Axios, Vox, ProPublica, The Atlantic, The Daily Caller, The Daily Wire, Breitbart, PJ Media, Newsbusters, The Blaze,.... All nerds interested in such political minutiae should go to those sites, rather than hijack /. news stories. Although /. is increasingly mediocre these days when it comes to covering tech issues
  • "Preliminary data had indicated that the U.S. economy added 584,000 jobs last year. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised that number after it received additional state data, and found that the labor market had added 181,000 jobs in all of 2025. [...] One bright spot was last month, when hiring increased by 130,000 roles."

    Okay, but how "preliminary" will the data for last month turn out to be?

    They say the point of the liarocracy is not to make people believe lies. (Though many seem to anyway!) The poi

  • Trustworthy? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ukoda ( 537183 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:27PM (#65983004) Homepage
    How much trust can you have in any data coming out of the current USA government these days?
    • None. Not now, and not ever. The economic numbers are always cooked, and the people doing the cooking never have your interests in mind.

      Imagine honestly believing inflation has only been 3 or 4% per year for the past 15 years.

      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        It really depends on what you're buying. Also, 15 years of 3.5% compound interest is not negligible.

      • Re:Trustworthy? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:04PM (#65983112) Homepage Journal

        Imagine honestly believing inflation has only been 3 or 4% per year for the past 15 years.

        Average? Yeah, probably.

        Description: 2010 / projected 2025 at 4% per year / actual 2025):

        • New house: 221,900 / 399,621 / 498,000 (higher)
        • Median rent: 1,083 / 1950 / 1703 (lower)
        • New car: 24,296 / 43,755 / 50,326 (higher)
        • Base iPhone model: 599 / 1078 / 799 (lower)
        • Gallon of milk: 3.25 / 5.85 / 4.42 (lower)

        So a few things that people buy infrequently went up way faster than inflation, while things that you buy far more often tended to go up way more slowly than inflation.

        • You picked milk because milk's prices artificially high. We produce so much of it we just dump it out a lot of the time in order to keep the price where it is.

          Meanwhile your glossing over housing and rent as if those are things people buy infrequently. Yeah you make a home purchase once or twice in your life but you're paying on it for 20 or 30 years. You also left healthcare out which has skyrocketed in price.

          It's the classic basket of goods trick where you only include things that make the numbers
          • Glossing over housing and rent? ... One went up, one went down. The people most affected the most by inflation are those unlikely to have a house (renters) who experienced lower figures. Meanwhile those who are most likely to buy a house right now do so with the capital of selling an existing one.

            So yeah, housing numbers impact inflation, but the cost of housing doesn't impact the people most impacted by the rising cost of living.

            But by all means, come up with your own numbers so we can blindly shit on them

          • by G00F ( 241765 )

            what also needs to show is individual incomes.

            I would also include other very significant income costs
            Health Insurance
            Auto Insurance
            Phone/Internet Bills
            Electric Bills (not just kw/h)
            Gasoline
            A few more core food items Chicken, Beef, Bread, Broccoli
            cost of media (netflix was enough, not it's not and it went up in price too)
            Taxes (mine went up 3+ times since then, which was % base before so it really hurts)
            And, last but most important is wages!

            • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

              Health Insurance

              Insurance is hard, because every state has different insurance companies with different plans and prices, and different age groups have different prices. Unless I can find a website that has compiled averages for multiple years, there's just no good way to get these numbers. And the ACA didn't exist before 2014, which makes it even more impractical, and the comparisons even less useful (because the market changed so much).

              So I'll do 2015 to 2025 instead.

              Silver plan for 25-year-old in California: $255 to 2

      • Well, what's your evidence about inflation? The CPI iterally is just looking at the prices on a particular basket of goods. That's it, it's not some magic secret formula, it's all published data. The only reason Biden was able to be attacked for inflation was the BLS under his own admin published the numbers, do you believe inflation was only 2% in 2021 instead of like 10? I mean "they" are always lying right?

        So, what's the evidence?

    • Re:Trustworthy? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot.worf@net> on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @09:43PM (#65983768)

      How much trust can you have in any data coming out of the current USA government these days?

      Should be none.

      But look at the numbers - no job growth? Trump is boasting the economy is better than ever and jobs are plentiful. The fact the BLS is reporting that no jobs were created goes against what Dear Leader is saying. Which means likely Dear Leader needs to pick a new chief of BLS. The old one was fired because she refused to make the numbers look better.

      Remember, Dear Leader keeps saying the economy is booming and jobs are easy to get. A department saying otherwise generally would be going against it.

      I would doubt the numbers if it said jobs grew at 10% in 2025, because that contradicts the numbers that were being reported by the BLS until she got fired.

      There are still some people that care and they're still reporting accurate numbers. (BLS is another one of those "nerd agencies" where people who join them have doctorates in mathematics).

      Another thing to check would be to see what happens to the BLS - if news comes where people are getting fired, then you know likely the numbers are real.

    • Paul Krugman [youtu.be] answered this question in a recent podcast interview. He basically said that the BLS and similar government stats offices are still the world's gold standard. It takes hundreds of people to put these stats together. If someone started messing with them, it would be noticed pretty quickly. However, he also pointed out that the gov't is releasing less data now (e.g. the number of children going hungry).

  • quarter million workers because our society voted for a brutal immigration crackdown. Our unemployment is actually pretty low. So, no, most of those jobs were not taken up by unemployed red-blooded, god-fearing flag--waving Americans, because there just weren't that many unemployed Americans to start with. For the most part, those deportations and self-deportations became job losses because businesses were forced to reduced their headcount.

    I can't really blame the current guy for this one. "We the peo
    • While I agree (dogmatically), there are signs around where I am living of workforce expansion. I can't tell if it is more people picking up second jobs, working extra hours, or something else, but I notice restaurants expanding hours, construction companies running full crews, and more professional landscape crews around.

      I can't tell if the economy has picked up to match-- my Costco bill is still up 50% a month, and there aren't obvious signs that people feel like they have more disposable income. Time wi

  • by hamburger lady ( 218108 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:08PM (#65983134)

    >>One bright spot was last month, when hiring increased by 130,000 roles

    as if that won't be revised later also

  • Getting difficult to deal with all this winning.

  • by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @06:36PM (#65983382) Homepage Journal

    One bright spot .. Job gains occurred in health care, social assistance, and construction

    This just goes to show: we need more terrorism and hurricanes, so that the resulting injuries and destruction can further brighten the spots of health care and construction labor.

    If you're a patriotic American, then please do your part to increase GDP and employment, by breaking a window today! And if the glass shards hurt someone, so much the better. Economic growth is economic growth!

  • by Innovation ( 10503276 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @09:13PM (#65983708)
    Most people don't understand that established businesses are WAY more worried about losses than they are interested in growth. It doesn't take very many people voicing concern/worry and companies hit pause and pile up cash. It's not a surprise then that the tariff talk/threats instantly shut down the growth plans/investments of established companies all over America. The soft labor market reflects that lack of investment
  • Only revisionist "data" shows job loses. Actual U.S. Labor Department data shows the opposite.

    U.S. Economy Adds 130,000 Jobs in January, Exceeding Expectations; Unemployment Falls to 4.3%

    - On Wednesday, the U.S. Labor Department reported U.S. employers added 130,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3%.

    - Government revisions cut into the previously reported 584,000 jobs figure, sharply reducing prior payroll totals and muddling 2024-2025 payrolls.

    - Private measures showed weaker hiring as

    • by whitroth ( 9367 )

      You actually believe *anything* the current regime says? The same regime that cancelled job reports?

      Oh, and btw, what no one here actually knows: about 20 years ago, we got *context* - that we needed about 119,000 new jobs every month to keep up with new people entering the workforce.

      Of course, with population growth dropping, we need less... but then how are markets supposed to grow?

    • Only revisionist "data" shows job loses. Actual U.S. Labor Department data shows the opposite.

      Um, it is the same U.S. Department of Labor outfit, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that produces the revised data as well as the initial data. The data is revised because the unemployment numbers are based on survey data and response rates are generally low for the initial data release. The revised data includes survey responses that arrived too late to be included in the initial release. The revised data is generally considered to be more accurate than the initial batch of data.

  • I am looking forward to the economic figures of the U.S. after the AI financial crash.

  • For these guys, hundreds of thousands is almost zero.

Cobol programmers are down in the dumps.

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