Steve Kopack is a senior reporter at NBC News covering business and the economy.
Economists hoping for a better understanding of the U.S. job market are keeping their expectations in check. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to announce February job numbers Friday, with the monthly data release predicted to show tepid growth due in part to a major strike in the health care industry.
The U.S. jobs market remains muddled. A surprisingly strong January report offered some optimism that hiring had picked up, but that data also showed that U.S. job growth in 2025 was far lower than previously thought. “We do not expect to learn much new about the state of the labor market with February employment data,” economists at Citigroup said. The U.S. economy at large has remained a mixed bag, in part due to a variety of headwinds that have included a government shutdown and a lack of clarity over the Trump administration’s tariff agenda. On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration’s tariff plans were on the verge of changing 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 underwhelming report on economic growth in February — the Commerce Department showed that the output of goods and services grew at only a 1.4% annual rate in the last quarter of 2025 — has added to concerns. And while unemployment has remained reasonably low hiring has been slow, leaving experts to use words like “frozen” and “stagnant” to describe the labor market. February’s jobs report is expected to show more of the same. Consensus expectations are that the U.S. added 50,000 jobs last month. Bank of America analysts expect to see 35,000 jobs were added, a low number due in part to the 31,000 health care workers who went on strike at Kaiser Permanente. That strike has since ended, but could still influence the overall numbers. There are also some questions over whether January’s strong showing could have been due in part to favorable weather and how the Bureau of Labor Statistics modeled its data. Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan, said Friday’s report could also show a downward revision of last month’s numbers. Citigroup’s economists are also keep expectations in check, writing in a recent note: “We continue to suspect that recently stronger jobs data reflects familiar seasonal patterns and not a true stabilization or improvement in demand for workers.” If jobless claims don’t increase in coming weeks and jobs reports through April or May don’t show a further slowing, then “that would be a more meaningful sign that hiring has actually started to improve again,” they said. However, that is not Citi’s base case. “We expect familiar patterns to result in the unemployment rate rising to around 4.7% later in the year,” they wrote. Friday’s jobs report will also arrive just as consumers are hit with fresh economic uncertainty. On Saturday, the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran, leading to severe shipping disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, where more than 20% of the world’s oil supply needs to pass through to reach the global market. In the days since, U.S. oil prices have risen 20% and retail gas prices have risen more than 30 cents for consumers, raising fresh fears of renewed inflation. “The surge in oil prices has started to bring back memories of 2022 when oil prices went above $100/barrel amid quickly accelerating inflation,” said Carsten Brzeski, the global head of macro at ING Research. “The global economy is once again witnessing a crucial moment,” he said, “one that not only has significant short-term implications, but also holds the potential to further aggravate ongoing seismic shifts in the wider geopolitical landscape.” ING expects U.S. inflation “to move back above 3% this year, squeezing consumer spending power.”
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