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Key Takeaways

• The U.S. employment likely added 150,000 jobs in January, continuing a streak of job creation going back to January 2021.
  

• Although hiring has slowed down since the post-pandemic boom of 2022, the job market has stayed resilient, and employers have avoided layoffs.
  

• The trajectory of the job market could depend on President Donald Trump's economic policies, with tariffs possibly derailing further growth.
  

U.S. employers likely slowed hiring down in January, but still added jobs at a healthy rate overall, if forecasters are correct.

A Bureau of Labor Statistics report on employment Friday is likely to show the economy added 150,000 jobs in January, down from the surprisingly high 256,000 added in December, according to a survey of economists by Bloomberg Finance, reported by Wells Fargo. The economy has added jobs every month since December 2020.

Should the report match expectations, it would highlight the resiliency of the labor market so far, even as high interest rates from the Federal Reserve, meant to slow the economy and corral inflation, have made it costlier for businesses to hire and expand over the past few years. Despite interest rates near their highest in decades for credit cards, mortgages, and other loans, layoffs have remained scarce and consumers have continued to ramp up their spending.

Only 207,000 people filed for jobless claims last week, according to the Department of Labor, a figure similar to pre-pandemic levels and not indicating any serious weakness in the labor market. Still, employers have pulled back on job openings dramatically since 2022, leaving the labor market in an uneasy "low hiring, low firing" limbo that some economists see as a potential precursor to increasing layoffs down the road.

What's Trump Got to Do With It?

Economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics, for example, predict the unemployment rate will rise throughout the year as high interest rates continue to bite and Donald Trump's administration pares back the size of the federal government, which employs about 2% of all workers in the country.

A wild card in the employment picture is Trump's economic policies. Trump has promised to impose tariffs on foreign trade, which could spark trade wars and hurt employment. However, forecasters are uncertain about how big the hit will be since Trump has yet to announce his planned tariffs' scope, size, or duration.

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