U.S. Added 911,000 Fewer Jobs in the Year Ended in March
32 comments
·September 9, 2025mperham
I will point out that our labor data can no longer be trusted as the organization is no longer politically neutral. Pushing the jobs record down means more blame for Biden and a much lower bar for Trump to meet in order to "improve" future jobs numbers.
> Trump ordered McEntarfer's removal on August 1 after data showed a surprise weakening in the U.S. labor market last month. The BLS employment report revealed meaningful revisions to job figures for the prior two months that raised investor worries that the Federal Reserve may need to play catch-up with interest rate cuts.
https://www.reuters.com/business/inflation-data-draw-scrutin...
NotMichaelBay
Agreed, the Trump administration is _heavily_ leaning on this as evidence to support their argument that "Biden's economy" was a "disaster":
> Today, the BLS released the largest downward revision on record proving that President Trump was right: Biden’s economy was a disaster and the BLS is broken.
> The benchmark revisions make clear the economy President Trump inherited was even weaker than we thought.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/09/bls-revisions-sh...
amradio1989
The economy is not great and has not been great for years. That has been the reality for almost all Americans.
It’s very odd to make this about Trump vs Biden. This has been brewing for nearly two decades. Forever-QE made us forget about the real health of the economy.
pcurve
With all the innovation in AI, you'd think there's more accurate way to track jobs data.
morgoths_bane
it's almost like there actually isn't any innovation
more_corn
I wonder if it’s because increasing the cost of doing business with massive tariffs nobody asked for or needs is causing businesses to get nervous and stop hiring.
Naww, must be someone else’s fault.
amradio1989
Not to pile on, but there is a huge public misunderstanding when it comes to economic data.
The data is lagging, usually by a full year. The policies that lead to that data are from the year before data collection, at a minimum, more likely two+ years.
Economic policies generally take time to ripple through the economy. Generally. There are exceptions. Interest rates tend to affect things pretty quickly relative to other changes.
CaptWillard
Well, seeing as this is a record of jobs created last year ... yeah.
QuizzicalCarbon
This data is from the Biden administration, predating the current Trump policies.
anon291
Third worldification of the United States.
moc_was_wronged
“It’s like 911, times a thousand.”
heldrida
Recession!
Ghost jobs, time wasters, unemployment, etc.
supportengineer
There must be a way to opt-out by constructing a sane, parallel world where things just work.
eMPee584
how about drumming up some public support for an open access post-scarcity economy where we shift focus to quality instead of profit and use our resources for building resilient planetary infrastructure...
gruez
>how about drumming up some public support for an open access post-scarcity economy where [...]
Right... as if scarcity is some sort of social construct that can be abolished by "drumming up some public support"? Maybe we should start small and start with energy scarcity, by "drumming up" some support for cold fusion?
gruez
Just like the global south "just" needs better governance to boost economic growth?
Apes
People often get hyper-focused on a single cause, but there is a whole range of forces driving a sharp decline in jobs. All of this is visible, yet we are marching toward an economic crisis of our own making. I believe the best term for this is "gray rhino".
* Tariffs and Trade Uncertainty – Elevated tariffs and rapidly shifting trade policies are raising costs for manufacturers and discouraging hiring and investment (Investopedia; Atlanta Fed survey; CBO analyses).
* Automation and AI Displacement – Automation and AI, especially in low-skill occupations, are reducing new job creation and wages for some workers (academic studies in arXiv and PMC).
* Restrictive Immigration Policies – Tightened immigration and visa processes are straining labor supply, particularly in sectors that rely on immigrant workers (Axios, 2025 labor coverage).
* Small Business Strain from Economic Pressure – Tariff-related uncertainty is leading small businesses to slow hiring or lay off employees (Joint Economic Committee report, 2025).
* Offshoring and Outsourcing Trends – Technological advances are enabling offshoring and automation, substituting domestic labor with remote or machine-based alternatives (academic research in World Development, 2024).
gruez
Is this AI generated? Besides the em-dashes, I don't think anyone cites "Investopedia" as a source (not the specific entity, but in that format), or makes citations in (source, year) format.
Apes
I created the list and had an LLM review it to ensure I wasn't just pulling stuff out of thin air. Looks like it switched my hyphens for em-dashes.
kelipso
Isn’t it usually the opposite you are supposed to do? LLM output and make sure it is factual because LLMs cannot tell what is factual or not?
I can’t even get myself to read what you “wrote” because of the LLM tinge though lol.
woobar
> but there is a whole range of forces driving a sharp decline in jobs
Technically, there is no decline in jobs. There were more jobs as of March 2025 than a year before. Less than reported earlier, but the overall number of jobs is still growing.
JumpCrisscross
> there is no decline in jobs. There were more jobs as of March 2025 than a year before. Less than reported earlier, but the overall number of jobs is still growing
Correct [1].
AlexandrB
> * Restrictive Immigration Policies – Tightened immigration and visa processes are straining labor supply, particularly in sectors that rely on immigrant workers (Axios, 2025 labor coverage).
I like how this is always framed as strained supply instead of upward pressure on wages, as if increasing wages is simply impossible and only supply matters. Then people look at graphs like this[1] and wonder: "What the heck is going on?"
lgleason
I don't think tariffs affected the numbers for the entire year that drastically since Trump had only been in office for 2 months out of the entire years period that this was looking at.
mandeepj
> I don't think tariffs affected the numbers for the entire year
Major policy or hiring gets slowed down during the election year, especially surrounding the voting month. Maybe that pace never picked up due to tariffs and other policy uncertainty?
Ongoing discussion (177 points, 152 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45182111