The U.S. economy unexpectedly lost 92,000 jobs in February, pushing the unemployment rate up to 4.4% and dealing a fresh blow to a labor market already struggling to find its footing. The grim numbers, released Friday (March 6) by the U.S. Labor Department, came in far below what economists had predicted and signal deepening trouble for American workers.
Economists had expected the country to continue adding jobs — even if slowly — not to lose them. Instead, February’s report erased nearly all of January’s gains and raised new alarm bells about the direction of the economy.
Job losses in February were widespread. Factories, construction firms, and the federal government all cut workers. Even health care — long a reliable source of job growth — shed 28,000 positions, partly due to a large strike among Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in California and Hawaii, involving roughly 31,000 employees.
The bad news didn’t stop there. Job gains for December and January were both revised lower. December, which had previously been reported as a gain of 48,000 jobs, was updated to a loss of 17,000 jobs. January’s gains were trimmed by 4,000 positions. Combined, those revisions erased 69,000 more jobs from the record.
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