Economy

Last edited Thu Feb 12, 2026, 10:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Here's how the payroll jobs numbers looked the last time (I scraped this Thursday night Feb 10) before the new Feb 11 report

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
Non-farm payroll jobs, monthly changes in thousands

Year Jan Feb Mar etc. etc.
2022] 225 869 471 305 241 461 696 237 227 400 297 126
2023] 444 306 85 216 227 257 148 157 158 186 141 269
2024] 119 222 246 118 193 87 88 71 240 44 261 323
2025] 111 102 120 158 19 -13 72 -26 108 -173 56 50

Here's how it looks now:

(in thousands)
Year Jan Feb Mar etc. etc.
2022] 190 819 490 308 301 434 714 290 220 357 303 100
2023] 434 290 68 241 280 225 163 218 156 159 127 154
2024] 175 206 228 64 78 87 53 9 155 33 134 237
2025] -48 42 67 108 13 -20 64 -70 76 -140 41 48
and January 2026 is 130

Differences, in thousands

Year Jan Feb Mar etc. etc.
2022] -35 -50 19 3 60 -27 18 53 -7 -43 6 -26
2023] -10 -16 -17 25 53 -32 15 61 -2 -27 -14 -115
2024] 56 -16 -18 -54 -115 0 -35 -62 -85 -11 -127 -86
2025] -159 -60 -53 -50 -6 -7 -8 -44 -32 33 -15 -2


Annual Totals, in thousands

Year Before After Difference
2022] 4555 4526 -29
2023] 2594 2515 -79
2024] 2012 1459 -553
2025]  584  181 -403

2025 comes out to an average of 15k jobs/month. If you remove January, it is 21k/month. A barely above-the-waterline record.

(Biden was president for most of January, and more importantly the Establishment Survey that produces the job numbers was conducted in the January 12-16 period, before the inauguration.)