US economy sheds 92,000 jobs in February in sharp slide

WalterGR

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035 US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February (bbc.com) 524 points | 23 hours ago | 733 comments

wood_spirit

Discussion yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035

alkyon

Already discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035

rayiner

The ungameable statistic is the native born labor force participation rate, which also ticked down: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01373413 . Unfortunately, that figure never recovered from the pandemic. It also never recovered from a major drop after the 2008 recession.

dgellow

I understand the US economy is experiencing some… troubled times. However, 4.4% unemployment rate, while that’s an increase, sounds really low compared to other countries. Am I missing something?

IgorPartola

So two factors that affected this report: 1. Kaiser Permanente healthcare strike sidelined 28,000 workers. The strike ended on February 23rd. 2. The severe weather resulting in two major snow storms made it so that lots of businesses were simply closed for a few days. This meant they couldn’t be properly surveyed. It still is not good, but the magnitude of how not good is worsened by specific one-time circumstances. Make of that what you will. I can’t see the FT article but this one. Talks a bit about these circumstances: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/06/february-2026-jobs-report.ht...

vlod

https://archive.is/RP83s