The Labor Department reported on March 6, 2026 that employers cut 92,000 jobs in February, when economists had expected a gain of about 60,000. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3%. Losses were widespread: factories, construction companies and the federal government all shed workers, and health care, the main engine of job growth over the past year, lost 28,000 jobs, partly because of a four-week strike by more than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and other workers.
December's job gain of 48,000 was revised to a net loss of 17,000. CNN noted that the economy has shed jobs in five of the past nine months, and that since May, the first month after Trump announced his biggest wave of tariffs, the labor market has lost 19,000 jobs. Manufacturing, which tariffs were expected to boost, has lost jobs in 13 of the past 14 months.
The report landed as the war with Iran sent oil prices surging. On March 9, oil passed $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine before falling back, and AAA put the national average for gasoline at about $3.48 a gallon, up nearly 50 cents in a week and from $2.90 a month earlier. Trump dismissed the increase in an ABC News interview: “I think it's fine. It's a little glitch. We had to take this detour.” Raymond James chief economist Eugenio Aleman called weak hiring combined with war-driven inflation pressure “probably the worst scenario for monetary policy.”
Correction (October 14, 2026): An earlier version of this entry called February the worst month since the pandemic and said gas hit the highest level of either Trump term; neither claim could be supported and both were removed, including from the title. It also said the economy had shed about 202,000 jobs outside health care since Trump took office, that 2025 was the first year since 2010 with five months of job losses, that the Iran war disrupted 20% of global oil supply, that the Dow fell 5% in a month, that the S&P 500's CAPE ratio hit 39.8, and that stagflation fears were growing. None of those figures could be traced to a live source, so they were removed. The gas figures are from March 9, three days after the jobs report, not the same day. The health care loss now notes the Kaiser strike. A dead PBS link was replaced.