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Despite overall job gains, February is a strong health care month Weaker than expected, but stable.
Last month, health care and social assistance led job creation, adding 63,100 jobs. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This marks the fifth month of the category’s biggest gains.
Like some economists, this number will grow to 73,000 jobs when private education is included in groups.
While this is another strong performance in healthcare, Ziprecruiter’s Julia Pollak noted that this level has been happening essentially over the past few years.
“Part of that was catching up growth during the pandemic, when many hospitals had negative margins because of the removal of elective procedures,” the company’s chief economist said in an interview with CNBC. “They didn’t hire the recruitment they would have done, and now they’re back to normal and hiring quickly.”
Pollak said the evolving demographic trend is another factor at play. She pointed out the so-called “Peak Zone 65” – A multi-year period is underway with more Americans, 65 years more than ever.
“Some of them are attractive, some of them are just the huge demographic shift we are experiencing,” Pollak continued.
Financial activities and construction are consistent in terms of job growth. The two categories added 21,000 and 19,000 positions respectively.
The government has also seen 11,000 positions this month. That said, BLS revealed that in the industry, federal jobs have been reduced by 10,000. This is in the efforts of President Donald Trump and the Department of Administration Efficiency (DOGE) Axe spending and labor level in the federal government.
“The loss of work will be much smaller in the upcoming report and the loss of work will be greater,” Pollak said, adding that the 10,000 reduction may reflect a small percentage of the fired probation staff. “This is still early days.”
In terms of weakness, retail trade and leisure and hospitality were the two groups that saw job losses in February. The retail trade lost 6,300 jobs, while leisure and hospitality lost 16,000.
