Economists hoping to better understand the US job market are keeping their expectations in check.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will announce February jobs numbers on Friday, as the monthly data release is predicted to show strong growth due in part to a major strike in the health care industry.
The US job market remains a mess. A surprisingly strong report in January gave hope that hiring had picked up, but those data also showed that US job growth through 2025 was much lower than previously thought.
“We don’t expect to learn much new about the state of the labor market in February’s employment data,” said economists at Citigroup.
The US economy as a whole remains a mixed bag, in part due to a variety of headwinds including the government shutdown and uncertainty about the Trump administration’s tariff agenda.
On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the tax administration’s plans are about to change again. Bessent said Trump was expected to raise global tariffs to 15% this week, up from the 10% he recently introduced after the Supreme Court struck down most of the previous tariffs.
An unfavorable report on economic growth in February – the Department of Commerce indicated that the output of goods and services (gross domestic product) grew at an annual rate of 1.4% in the last quarter of 2025 – added to the concern.
And while unemployment remains fairly low (it touched 4.3% last month) hiring is slowing, leaving experts to use words like “frozen” and “stagnant” to describe the labor market.
The February jobs report is expected to show the same. Consensus expectations are that the US added 50,000 jobs last month.
Analysts at Bank of America expected to see 35,000 jobs added, a lower number due to the 31,000 health care workers on strike at Kaiser Permanente. That strike is over, but it still has an impact on all the numbers.
There are also questions about whether January’s strong showing was due in part to favorable weather and how the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiled its data. Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JP Morgan, said Friday’s report may reflect a decline in last month’s figures.
Citigroup economists also maintained optimism for the outlook, writing in a recent note: “We continue to suspect that the recently strengthened jobs data reflect seasonal patterns and not real stability or improvement in labor demand.”
If jobless claims don’t pick up in the coming weeks and jobs reports in April or May don’t show a gradual improvement, then “that would be a strong sign that hiring is starting to pick up again,” they said.
However, that is not Citi’s basic case. “We expect general patterns that will result in the unemployment rate increasing to around 4.7% later this year,” they wrote.
Friday’s jobs report will also come as consumers grapple with new economic uncertainty.
On Saturday, the US and Israel began to attack Iran, which led to a major disruption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, where more than 20% of the world’s oil needs to pass to reach the world market.
In the days since, US oil prices have risen 20% and gasoline prices have risen more than 30 cents for consumers, raising new fears of renewed inflation.
“Rising oil prices have started to bring back memories of 2022 when oil prices exceeded $100/barrel amid accelerating inflation,” said Carsten Brzeski, head of global macro at ING Research.
“The global economy has once again witnessed an important period,” he said, “which not only has a significant short-term impact, but also has the potential to fuel ongoing seismic changes in the broader political landscape.”
ING expects inflation in the US to “return to more than 3% this year, weighing on consumer spending.”
