US economy sheds 92,000 jobs in February in sharp slide

The ungameable statistic is the native born labor force participation rate, which also ticked down: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01373413.

Unfortunately, that figure never recovered from the pandemic. It also never recovered from a major drop after the 2008 recession.

So two factors that affected this report:

1. Kaiser Permanente healthcare strike sidelined 28,000 workers. The strike ended on February 23rd.

2. The severe weather resulting in two major snow storms made it so that lots of businesses were simply closed for a few days. This meant they couldn’t be properly surveyed.

It still is not good, but the magnitude of how not good is worsened by specific one-time circumstances. Make of that what you will.

I can’t see the FT article but this one. Talks a bit about these circumstances: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/06/february-2026-jobs-report.ht...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035

US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February (bbc.com)

524 points | 23 hours ago | 733 comments

I understand the US economy is experiencing some… troubled times. However, 4.4% unemployment rate, while that’s an increase, sounds really low compared to other countries. Am I missing something?

Discussion yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035

Already discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035

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In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country until you came along, we're just always losing. But now we're winning too much. And I say, no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big. You're going to win bigger than ever.