Is the labor market stabilizing or sliding backward after last year’s onslaught of dismal data? On Friday morning, all eyes will be on February’s jobs report for clues.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg anticipate 55,000 new positions will be shown in February’s jobs data, a decrease from the month prior but still better than the 15,000 roles added each month on average in 2025. The unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 4.3%.
January’s employment data, which could be revised in Friday’s report, showed better-than-expected payroll growth of 130,000 jobs to start 2026, with the vast majority of those roles concentrated in healthcare and social assistance.
“In 2025, job growth slowed to near stall speed, but limited labor supply growth kept unemployment from rising,” Kory Kantenga, head of economics, Americas, at LinkedIn, said in a report on Wednesday. “Most payroll gains came from healthcare. Payroll growth in 2026 will hinge on whether healthcare can add enough jobs to offset weakness elsewhere.”
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LinkedIn estimated that 40,000 positions were added in February, or “about the break-even pace needed to keep unemployment steady,” Kantenga said. Private data released this week from payroll processor ADP also suggested growth near the break-even level, with 63,000 roles gained last month.
Meanwhile, Shruti Mishra, a US economist at Bank of America Securities, noted in a research report that a massive strike among Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in California and Hawaii may weigh on February’s payroll growth, as 31,000 employees walked off the job.
Despite that “mechanical drag” on healthcare roles, Mishra wrote, “we remain positive on the healthcare sector in 2026, given its acyclical nature, its low exposure to AI, and an aging population.”
Further pullback in February’s jobs report could also be attributed to weather-sensitive sectors seeing impacts from a spate of snowstorms and cold temperatures, which temporarily pushed applications for unemployment benefits higher. Still, “initial and continuing claims remained very low during the survey week” for the jobs report, Mishra said.
Oxford Economics lead economist Nancy Vanden Houten similarly said in a note that payroll growth may have “sharply decelerated in February,” even with overall job conditions “at least” stabilizing, amid cold weather and the healthcare strike.