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February Jobs Report Shows 'Stagnating Labor Market,' Says Liz Pancotti
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March 6, 2026
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8:08Now PlayingLiz Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, said that the surprise decline in February jobs numbers was due to work stoppages in the health care industry -- one of the key sectors propping up labor market growth in the last year. Pancotti said that the report indicates that around four years of growth have been wiped out in both labor market participation and employment to population ratio.
US employers unexpectedly cut jobs in February and the unemployment rate rose, pointing to lingering fragility in a labor market that was thought to be stabilizing.
Nonfarm payrolls fell 92,000 last month, one of the largest declines since the pandemic, after a strong start to the year. While some of the downside was expected in advance, like a temporary dent from striking healthcare workers and a potential hit from bad weather, a wide array of industries cut jobs in the month.
The figures call into question whether the labor market is actually steadying — as Wall Street economists and Federal Reserve officials had hoped — after the worst year for hiring outside of a recession in decades.
“The idea the labor market has turned a corner implodes with this report,” Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a note.
Friday’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests companies may be starting to follow through on a series of previously announced layoffs. And a recent trend in productivity gains illustrates how spending on artificial intelligence has allowed some firms to get by with leaner staffing.
The data also highlight just how much the recent momentum of the US labor market has hinged on one sector: health care.
“This is about a labor market that is so soft that it cannot withstand a strike of 31,000 physicians in health care because no one else is hiring,” said Omair Sharif, president of Inflation Insights LLC. More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente employees were on strike for most of the month.
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