March 6 (UPI) — Nonfarm payrolls fell by 92,000 in February while the rate of unemployment climbed to 4.4%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Health care employment experienced one of the biggest declines of any major employment category, falling by 28,000.
The BLS said physicians’ offices lost 37,000 jobs due to strikes.
For the 12-month period ending in February, health care added an average of 36,000 jobs per month.
Information services and government employment also decreased. Government payrolls fell by 10,000, marking 330,000 jobs lost since October 2024, an 11% reduction.
Transportation and warehousing jobs have fallen by 157,000 over the past year after 11,000 jobs were lost in February. Air transportation reported an increase of 5,000 jobs.
February’s losses exceeded the Dow Jones estimate of 50,000. It is the third month to post a payroll loss in the last five months.
February’s decline in payrolls marks a stark change from the jobs added in January. However, the BLS revised January’s new jobs down 4,000 to 126,000. The revision of December’s jobs took its count into the negative, reducing by 65,000 from 48,000 gained to 17,000 lost.
While jobs fell overall for the month, the average hourly earnings for private, nonfarm workers increased by about 15 cents or 0.4%. The average hourly earnings hit $37.32, a 3.8% increase over a year ago.
The Federal Reserve will watch the jobs numbers closely as it considers policy moving forward, Fed Gov. Christopher Waller said Friday.
“If we get a bad number, January’s revised down to some really low number — the question is, why are you just sitting on your hands?” Waller said in an appearance on Bloomberg News. “I could certainly see this meeting going the other way, depending on the data this week and [how] the [consumer price index] next week comes in.”