Trump Boom: America Added 130,000 Jobs in January—More Than Twice As Many As ExpectedJohn Carney 11 Feb 2026
The U.S. economy 130,000 jobs in January, more than twice as many as expected, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent, the Labor Department said Wednesday.
Economists had expected 55,000 jobs, although the range of forecasts was particularly wide, with some analysts predicting between zero jobs and 130,000. The unemployment rate was forecast to remain steady at 4.4 percent.The report was delayed a few days by the partial government shutdown.
The jobs growth came entirely from the private sector, which added 172,000 jobs. The federal government’s payrolls contracted by 34,000 while state and local government employment shrank by 8,000.
The number’s released Wednesday were all the more extraordinary because labor market dynamics reflect a significant shift away from dependence on an immigration-driven workforce. Jobs numbers that may seem anemic compared with recent years may actually indicate healthy—even robust—growth under current conditions, according to economists.
Many economists now estimate the so-called “break-even” rate of job growth—the rate required to keep unemployment from rising—may be as low as 30,000 and could hit zero later this year. By contrast, when immigration was running at higher levels from 2021 through 2024, the economy needed to add more than 100,000 jobs monthly to keep pace with labor-force growth.
Retirements are also driving down the growth of the labor force, as an increasing number of members of the large baby boom generation leaves work and later, smaller generations fail to fully replace them. Last year, job growth was held back by the Trump administration’s focus on shrinking government payrolls, part of it’s program to “reprivatize” the U.S. economy.
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https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/02/11/trump-boom-america-added-130000-jobs-in-january-twice-as-many-as-expected/
