The First Jobs Report of 2026 Will Be Released on Wednesday

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the first jobs report of 2026 on Feb. 11, and it is expected to spotlight employment conditions similar to those in the second half of last year.

January’s total nonfarm payrolls report is projected to show the U.S. economy added 55,000 jobs, below the trailing 12-month average of 77,800, according to FactSet Insights.

The unemployment rate is forecast to tick up to 4.5 percent from 4.4 percent in the previous month.

White House officials are already tempering their expectations for the January jobs report.

In a Feb. 10 interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said he anticipates smaller job growth due to higher productivity and lower population figures.

“So I think that you should expect slightly smaller job numbers that are consistent with high ​GDP growth right now,” Hassett said.

“And that ‌one shouldn’t panic if you see a sequence of numbers that are lower than you’re used to, because, again, population growth is going down and productivity growth is skyrocketing. It’s an ⁠unusual set of circumstances.”

The widely watched Atlanta Federal Reserve GDPNow Model estimate indicates 4.2 percent growth for the fourth quarter.

Upcoming employment data was delayed due to the partial U.S. government shutdown.

The state of the labor market has softened substantially since the summer, as economic observers and policymakers describe it as a low-fire, low-hire environment. Businesses are neither laying off large numbers of workers nor expanding headcount.

After finishing the year with 50,000 new jobs, 2025 was the worst annual performance for payroll growth outside of a recession since 2003.

This has been largely driven by economic uncertainty, changes to immigration and trade policy, and new labor supply-demand dynamics.

On the supply side, population growth has slowed, Baby Boomers are aging and retiring, and immigration has decreased.

Conversely, investments in artificial intelligence (AI), higher input costs, federal funding, and an uncertain outlook have weighed on the demand for workers.

“All recent data suggest that the same kind of ‘low-hire, low-fire’ environment that defined much of 2025 looks likely to continue into 2026,” Cory Stahle, labor economist at Indeed, said in a Jan. 22 note.

“Overall, job postings are flat or declining, but small pockets of growth are emerging as employers concentrate their limited hiring on roles and skills tied to AI.”

Job openings declined sharply to a lower-than-expected 6.542 million in December 2025, from the previous month’s downwardly revised 6.928 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While there has been some optimism over the labor market in the year ahead, new data from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas offered some sour news to kick off the year.

U.S.-based companies announced 108,435 planned job cuts—the largest January total in 2009.

“Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in Q1, but this is a high total for January. It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026,” Andy Challenger, the firm’s chief revenue officer, said in a news release.

Attached to the January jobs data will be the bureau’s updated figures from past job reports.

Annual Benchmark Revisions

The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles its payroll survey data from surveys of about 121,000 employers. Each company is given three opportunities to submit its payroll gains and losses for the month.

Every year, the bureau conducts a process to clean up its monthly survey estimates, using data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program.

The program, using data from state unemployment insurance tax records, covers approximately 95 percent of U.S. jobs. It offers a comprehensive summary of the number of businesses, employees, and wages nationwide.

The challenge is that it comes with a substantial lag. When the annual benchmark revisions are released on Feb. 11, they will cover the 12-month period through March 2025.

Officials published preliminary revisions last year, noting that the U.S. economy overcounted by more than 900,000 between April 2024 and March 2025.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, speaking to reporters at the December 2025 post-meeting press conference, warned of “systematic overcount” that may indicate negative job growth. This could affect monetary policy.

“But I think a world where job creation is negative, I just think we need to watch that situation very carefully and be in a position where we’re not, you know, pushing down on job creation with our policy,” Powell said.

In recent years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has come under greater scrutiny for its data-gathering efforts and reporting practices following sizable downward revisions.

For example, the final annual benchmark figure for the 12 months ending in March 2024 was negative 589,000.

Some have attributed the wild swings to lower response rates, while others say the federal agency maintains outdated tools.

Officials recently adjusted the birth-death model, which estimates the number of jobs created by newly formed businesses and lost due to business closures. The bureau will now use current survey data from the establishment survey rather than using guesswork.