The jobs market opened the new year with 130,000 jobs added in January, higher than economists’ expectations, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday.
Unemployment sits at 4.3%, a tenth of a percentage point lower than in December. The health care, social assistance and construction industries saw the most new jobs created, while the federal government and financial activities industry lost jobs.
The jobs numbers were double what economists estimated for January, but below the jobs numbers from January 2025. The new report also revised the total number of jobs the U.S. economy added in 2025 to 181,000, a significant drop from the originally estimated 584,000 jobs.