US added 130,000 jobs in January, surpassing expectations as 2025 growth is slashed

The US jobs market added 130,000 jobs in January, according to a highly anticipated labor market report released on Wednesday, a surge of job growth after months of fatigue in the labor market.The unemployment rate was 4.3% in January, a slight cooling since the fall. Economists predicted 70,000 in job gains and an unchanged unemployment rate for January.The gains are still 13,000 jobs less than the the 143,000 jobs added a year ago in January 2025, but more than double the 50,000 jobs that were added in December.Despite January’s boost to the labor market, the report also included revisions to the total number of new jobs in 2025. After revisions, total new jobs for the year was 181,000, down from an initially reported 584,000 jobs, marking the weakest year of job growth since the Covid-19 pandemic. In comparison, 2m jobs were added to the economy in 2024.a chart showing monthly changes in US jobs from October 2024 to January 2026The report comes after a tumultuous year for the US economy, with constantly changing trade and immigration policies marring the labor market with instability.The jobs report, originally scheduled for release on 6 February, was also delayed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics due to the brief government shutdown in early February.In advance of the report, private payroll grew by only 22,000 jobs in January, below economists’ expectations of 45,000 jobs. Last year, private payrolls gained 140,000 jobs during the same period.US employers announced 108,435 layoffs in January 2026, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, up 118% from January 2025 and the highest to start a year since 2009.Job openings in the US dropped in December 2025 by 386,000 jobs to 6.542m, the lowest level since September 2020, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (Jolts) report released last week.On Tuesday, White House adviser Peter Navarro warned against high expectations for the monthly jobs number, claiming that new jobs will be in the 50,000 range.“We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like,” Navarro told Fox News.Job figures during the Biden administration were actually inflated because “we were letting in 2 million illegal aliens”, but “all of the jobs that we were creating in Biden years were going to illegals”, he said.The weakening labor market hasn’t been slow enough to inspire the US Federal Reserve to slash interest rates as US inflation also remains unstable.Last month, economists at the bank said the unemployment rate leveling at 4.4% is a possible sign of stability in the labor market, though job gains have been low. Slowed job growth comes from new immigration policies and labor force participation, Powell added, as well as tempered demand for labor.The central bank is also being cautious about increasing prices. US inflation was 2.7% in December, and Powell said the effects of tariffs are still flowing through prices.Higher prices have continued to impact consumer sentiment: According to the University of Michigan’s survey of consumers, sentiment was 57.3 in February, a lift up from over the past six months but more than 11% lower than the same period in 2025.