U.S. payrolls rose by 130,000 in January, more than expected; unemployment rate at 4.3%

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNBC

Published Wed, Feb 11 2026 8:32 AM EST Updated 6 Min Ago


Job growth was stronger than expected to start 2026, providing some relief to concerns about the state of the U.S. labor market.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 130,000 for January, above the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 55,000, according to seasonally adjusted figures the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday. The total also was an improvement over December, which saw a gain of 48,000 after a slight downward revision.

The unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%, below the forecast to stay unchanged at 4.4% from the prior month. A more encompassing measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons slipped to 8%, down 0.4 percentage point from December.



Markets rose following the news, with stock market futures ticking higher. Treasury yields also posted strong gains. The report, delayed nearly a week by the partial government shutdown that ended Feb. 3, held consistent with a labor market in a low-growth mode, though with only scattered signs of increasing layoffs.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/jobs-report-january-2026-.html

---

From the source -

Link to tweet

BLS-Labor Statistics
@BLS_gov
·
Follow
Payroll employment rises by 130,000 in January; unemployment rate changes little at 4.3% #BLSData #EmpSit https://bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_02112026.htm
8:30 AM · Feb 11, 2026

Article updated.

Previous article -

Published Wed, Feb 11 2026 8:32 AM EST Updated 3 Min Ago


Job growth was stronger than expected to start 2026, providing some relief to concerns about the state of the U.S. labor market.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 130,000 for January, above the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 55,000, according to seasonally adjusted figures the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday. The total also was an improvement over December, which saw a gain of 48,000 after a slight downward revision. The unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%, below the forecast to stay unchanged at 4.4% from the prior month.

The report, delayed nearly a week by the partial government shutdown that ended Feb. 3, held consistent with a labor market in a low-growth mode, though with only scattered signs of increasing layoffs.

In addition to the monthly numbers, the BLS released final benchmark revisions for the year prior to March 2025. Those numbers saw the initial counts revised lower by a total 898,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis. That was a bit lower than the 911,000 figure for the initial estimate last September but around Wall Street expectations.


This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

Original article -

Published Wed, Feb 11 2026 8:32 AM EST


Nonfarm payrolls were expected to increase by 55,000 in January while the unemployment rate held at 4.4%, according to the Dow Jones consensus estimate.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

[Hugin]

1. I am getting a spoof warning for the bls link provided.

Won’t proceed.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. The copy/paste text version doesn't run it into the tag like the Xitter post

https://bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_02112026.htm

[Hugin]

5. It's missing the "www"...

Trying this.

https://www.bls.gov/

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_02112026.htm

[BumRushDaShow]

14. It's not normally required as a DNS would usually have different variations to refer back to

[Tim S]

7. They are using a wildcard certificate for encryption instead of using a proper server name

The cert was minted for “*.bls.gov,” not plain old “bls.gov” as listed in the link. The cert requires *some* sort of server name in front of the ”bls.gov” part.

I don’t think this is malicious, just either lazy IT admin (no auto redirect to “www.bls.gov” or a bad copy-paste of the link.

[Hugin]

11. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_02112026.htm Works...

I can’t abide a sloppy federal government. Led by a sloppy vindictive turd. Pathetic.

[gilpo]

2. I call bullshit n/t

[Rebl2]

20. Same

Considering all the layoffs I have heard about recently, one example Amazon, another UPS, also Citi.

[SunSeeker]

3. I bet it will be revised down, anemic as it is. nt

[CousinIT]

6. I can't trust BLS info with Trump and Vought in control. Are they being diddled?

Who knows?

Are they accurate?

Who knows?

Nobody does anymore.

[groundloop]

8. Exactly. Previous BLS Admin was fired for allowing unfavorable numbers to be published......

so no, nothing they put out is to be trusted.

[Wiz Imp]

15. BLS data continues to be legit. As 30+ year employee on the CES program I can vouch for that.

The current acting BLS Commissioner is a long time career civil servant (not a political appointee) who has served in that capacity in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Having met him, I can guarantee he is of the utmost honesty and integrity.

There are legitimate reasons to suspect the January jobs data is not accurate but I can guarantee that it was not manipulated.

[mahina]

19. Good to hear. Thank you.

Can you say more about how it could be innaccurate but not manipulated? Thanks.

[Wiz Imp]

24. It's a sample based estimate. As such it is subject to several types of statistical error.

Last edited Wed Feb 11, 2026, 12:50 PM - Edit history (1)

Such as non-response error. The sample is constructed to maximize the accuracy at 100% response. Response rates to this survey are far below that. The lower the response, the less accurate the estimates are likely to be.

There is also response error. Some employers report innacurate data.

There is also sampling error, which is directly related to sample size, with smaller industries having higher relative standard errors.

And there is a birth-death model which is used in addition to the sample to attempt to capture movements of new businesses which are too new to have been selected into the sample. The birth-death model is generally based on historical trends, and thus has a tendency to be off target during turning points in the economy.

All of these combined (plus other types of statistical error) can cause data to be less accurate than ideal. These errors do tend to be greatest during economic turning points which we are clearly at now.

[mahina]

28. Thank you.

How bad do you think the downturn will be? Mahalo.

[Wiz Imp]

30. That's really hard to predict. But given Trump's complete lack of understanding

of anything about economics, the fact that nobody in his administration seems to understand anything about economic either and Trump's tendency to do things to make things worse, I'm pretty pessimistic. I'll be surprised if we don't fall into a bad recession. It may not be quite as bad as the great recession but I expect it to be worse than every other recession since the great depression.

[moniss]

22. You cannot guarantee that someone

above the head of BLS reviewed and "made changes" to the report. I've seen that kind of maneuver in the past with environmental agencies. There is no ability to guarantee any level of integrity with respect to anything issued by this administration. To think there will be is an act of faith for which this administration has no basis for receiving.

It is not unusual for there to be people of integrity at lower levels in an organization who have been there a long time and then someone from outside the group gets power and wants things portrayed a certain way despite the facts. That is the point at which it comes down to whether you put your name to things that are issued or have the avenue or power to make public any statements of disagreement.

Often the employees are rigidly prevented from making statements outside of the organization. I am quite familiar with environmental cases where "action plans" for environmental problems that were issued by the responsible agency contained statements of "fact" that were not supported by the technical people working on the assessment/remediation plan. The agency head, a political appointee, issued the plan with stated "facts and conclusions" that were desired by the powers that be rather than what was supported by the science. Those unsupported "facts and conclusions" were used to justify particular remediation plans moving forward.

It happens at all levels sometimes and unfortunately the ability of people of integrity within the organization to raise the alarm is often limited, under threat of legal action, to simply resigning. You should take as an example the mass resignations at DOJ and note that, despite having a lot of knowledge about the things going wrong inside the department that brought them to the point of resignation, the people who resigned are not out in the public making detailed disclosures about the problems that led them to resign. The threat of legal actions against them does not end just by resigning their position.

So the bottom line is that reports come out under a signature, or not, and words of disclaimer may or may not be evident or allowed. In a normal environment trust and integrity are proven long term and reports are accepted on their face. This environment is not remotely normal and therefore that normal manner of acceptance is no longer prudent or warranted and everything must be questioned and examined as opposed to taken verbatim.

[Wiz Imp]

23. Yes I can. The acting Commissioner of BLS (Bill Wiatroski) would immediately

resign if that were to happen. Along with most of the BLS staff. Not everything is a conspiracy. The BLS jobs numbers are absolutely legit. Do you really think they would manipulate the data to show a jjob gain of just 181,000 for the entire year of 2025? That's an annual job gain less than half the average monthly gain during Biden's term. You really believe they would purposely manipulate the data and still show the most pathetic job market in 15 years? Really??????

[moniss]

26. You missed the point of my post entirely. nt

[Wiz Imp]

29. 🙄

No. You refuse to accept the truth. The BLS jobs data to this point has been 100% honest. And yes I know that to be true. You can refuse to accept it all you like. You are wrong. It is quite frankly enormously offensive that people like you who don't understand how BLS works feel perfectly comfortable maligning the integrity of thousands of honest career civil servants just because of your hatred of Trump.

Nobody hates Trump more than I do, but I know how the Federal Statistical agencies work and know that Trump is incapable of manipulating most government statistics without being called out on it by pretty much every economist in the world.

[UpInArms]

9. The markets will roar upward until

they realize this means there will be no Fed interest rate cut, as the pressure will once again turn to inflation, rather than employment

[Miguelito Loveless]

10. BLS is no longer reliable or truthful

[Wiz Imp]

13. Completely wrong

[travelingthrulife]

12. Bullshit.

[Javaman]

16. and like all the other jobs number, it will quietly be revised down in a month or two. nt

[Rebl2]

21. When

Biden if the numbers were revised down, the media made sure you knew. Not under this administration though.

[Javaman]

37. Oh the numbers had been released with the down revised number

But they do it usually late on a Friday night.

[twodogsbarking]

17. Seize the ballots and recount, by someone who can, well, count.

[Rebl2]

18. I

Don’t think so.

[progree]

25. Previous 2 months were revised down by a combined 17,000

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised down by 15,000, from +56,000 to +41,000, and the change for December was revised down by 2,000, from +50,000 to
+48,000. With these revisions, employment in November and December combined is 17,000 lower
than previously reported. (Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from
businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the
recalculation of seasonal factors. The annual benchmark process also contributed to the
November and December revisions.)

[SunSeeker]

31. And the jobs numbers for 2025 were revised to LESS THAN HALF of what was originally stated.

The report included major revisions that reduced the number of jobs created last year to just 181,000, weakest since the pandemic year of 2020, and less than half the previously reported 584,000. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-economy-jobs-report_n_698c87c5e4b01dbafe65f9d8?origin=home-latest-news-unit

[progree]

38. Yes, that is true, thank you. Here is the before-and-after

Here's how the payroll jobs numbers looked the last time (I scraped this Thursday night Feb 10) before the new Feb 11 report

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
Non-farm payroll jobs, monthly changes in thousands

Year Jan Feb Mar etc. etc.
2022] 225 869 471 305 241 461 696 237 227 400 297 126
2023] 444 306 85 216 227 257 148 157 158 186 141 269
2024] 119 222 246 118 193 87 88 71 240 44 261 323
2025] 111 102 120 158 19 -13 72 -26 108 -173 56 50

Here's how it looks now:

(in thousands)
Year Jan Feb Mar etc. etc.
2022] 190 819 490 308 301 434 714 290 220 357 303 100
2023] 434 290 68 241 280 225 163 218 156 159 127 154
2024] 175 206 228 64 78 87 53 9 155 33 134 237
2025] -48 42 67 108 13 -20 64 -70 76 -140 41 48
and January 2026 is 130

Differences, in thousands

Year Jan Feb Mar etc. etc.
2022] -35 -50 19 3 60 -27 18 53 -7 -43 6 -26
2023] -10 -16 -17 25 53 -32 15 61 -2 -27 -14 -115
2024] 56 -16 -18 -54 -115 0 -35 -62 -85 -11 -127 -86
2025] -159 -60 -53 -50 -6 -7 -8 -44 -32 33 -15 -2


Annual Totals, in thousands

Year Before After Difference
2022] 4555 4526 -29
2023] 2594 2515 -79
2024] 2012 1459 -553
2025]  584  181 -403

I've been yammering about the upcoming benchmark revisions for months before this report, I didn't include it in my post above because it was already mentioned in the OP (and I was in a severe time-bind). But the OP didn't specifically mention the previous 2 months' revisions which they do every month, so that's why I posted about that.

But yes, I should have mentioned the benchmark revisions as well.

Anyway, the above is the full before-and-after situtation with all revisions of all types included.

[Norrrm]

27. Can we trust numbers provided by Trump and his stooges? I don't think so.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

32. MaddowBlog-New report shows 2025 was even worse for U.S. job market than we thought

A question for the White House: If Trump has created the greatest economy in history, why did job growth slow to a 16-year low after he returned to power?

We thought 2025 was a bad year for the U.S. job market. We now know it was far worse than we feared.

The question for the White House is simple: If Trump has created the greatest economy in history, why did job growth collapse after he returned to power?
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-02-11T14:00:53.622Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/new-report-shows-2025-was-even-worse-for-u-s-job-market-than-we-thought

Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 55,000 new jobs being created in the United States in January. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals exceeded those expectations. CNBC News reported:

Job growth was stronger than expected to start 2026, providing some relief to concerns about the state of the U.S. labor market.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 130,000 for January, compared to the downwardly revised growth of 48,000 in December, and above the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 55,000, according to seasonally adjusted figures the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday.

The unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%.

....But while the new report wasn’t a disaster, it’s only a small part of a larger picture: The February report from the BLS is unique because it includes revised data from the entire previous calendar year.

And on this front, the new data is quite brutal.

Previous estimates showed that the U.S. economy generated 584,000 jobs in the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, which was deeply discouraging. In fact, if we exclude years in which the economy fell into recession, the preliminary data showed that 2025 was the worst year for U.S. job growth since 2003.

Now, however, the picture is far worse: The newly revised, final data shows that the U.S. economy added only 181,000 jobs in 2025......

In other words, what would ordinarily be seen as a good month for job growth represented the entirety of the year. Indeed, in the final month of Joe Biden’s presidency, the economy created 237,000 jobs, more than entirety of the year that followed.

What’s more, we now know that in four months last year, the U.S. economy actually lost jobs — the first time this has happened since the Great Recession.

This week, the president peddled a familiar boast, insisting that he’s responsible for creating “the greatest economy, actually, ever in history.”

That was bonkers for a variety of reasons, but the new jobs data makes the claim look even worse. Indeed, the question for Trump and his White House team is simple: If Trump has created the greatest economy in history, why did American job growth slow to a 16-year low after he returned to power?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

33. "Reducing trust in government in general is very bad for progressive causes and ultimately great for the populist right.

Reposted by We Left With All Of My Popehats
https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social

‪Nute Year, Nute You
‪@nutedawn.bsky.social‬

A very real dilemma: you really can’t a lot of stuff this administration puts out BUT reducing trust in government in general is very bad for progressive causes and ultimately great for the populist right

‪Alan Zilberman‬
‪@alanzilberman.bsky.social‬
· 4h

Bluesky in a nutshell.

Some context: BLS released its jobs numbers today, which were better than expected, and resistance libs would rather stay mad/conspiratorial than listen to actual on-the-ground experts that the data is still reliable.

12:03 PM · Feb 11, 2026

A very real dilemma: you really can’t a lot of stuff this administration puts out BUT reducing trust in government in general is very bad for progressive causes and ultimately great for the populist right

— Nute Year, Nute You (@nutedawn.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T17:03:43.102Z

Alan Zilberman
‪@alanzilberman.bsky.social‬

Bluesky in a nutshell.

Some context: BLS released its jobs numbers today, which were better than expected, and resistance libs would rather stay mad/conspiratorial than listen to actual on-the-ground experts that the data is still reliable.

11:49 AM · Feb 11, 2026

Bluesky in a nutshell.

Some context: BLS released its jobs numbers today, which were better than expected, and resistance libs would rather stay mad/conspiratorial than listen to actual on-the-ground experts that the data is still reliable.

— Alan Zilberman (@alanzilberman.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T16:49:55.084Z

https://bsky.app/profile/erikamcentarfer.bsky.social

Erika McEntarfer
@erikamcentarfer.bsky.social
15.1K followers
401 following
151 posts
Former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ex-Council of Economic Advisers, Census, Treasury. Current: Distinguished policy fellow at Stanford/SIEPR. Opinions my own.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

34. "Person who was fired here - you should still trust BLS data."

Erika McEntarfer
‪@erikamcentarfer.bsky.social‬

Person who was fired here - you should still trust BLS data. The agency is being run by the same dedicated career staff who were running it while I was awaiting confirmation from the Senate. And the staff have made it clear that they are blowing a loud whistle if there is interference.
11:25 AM · Feb 11, 2026

Person who was fired here - you should still trust BLS data. The agency is being run by the same dedicated career staff who were running it while I was awaiting confirmation from the Senate. And the staff have made it clear that they are blowing a loud whistle if there is interference.

— Erika McEntarfer (@erikamcentarfer.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T16:25:48.923Z

[LetMyPeopleVote]

35. Reality: 800,000+ layoffs this year -- the worst YTD since 2020, per nonpartisan analysts.

Link to tweet

[Strelnikov_]

36. I'd buy that for a dollar!