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The evidence points to a labor market that cooled during Donald Trump’s second term, and the Congressional Budget Office projects that the 2025 tariff changes will reduce employment compared with what would have happened without them. But the data do not prove that Trump caused every change—or that every part of the labor market worsened. Payroll jobs, federal employment, unemployment and labor-force participation tell different parts of the story.
What the job numbers show
In its September 2025 report, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said payroll employment rose by 119,000 that month, while total nonfarm employment had shown little change since April. The same release put unemployment at 4.4%, labor-force participation at 62.4% and the employment-population ratio at 59.7%. These figures describe different measures, not competing estimates of one thing.
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| Measure | Reported figure and period | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll employment | Up 119,000 in September 2025; little change since April, according to the BLS | Jobs on employer payrolls, not the number of people employed |
| Unemployment rate | 4.4% in September 2025, according to the BLS | The share of the labor force counted as unemployed |
| Labor-force participation | 62.4% in September 2025, according to the BLS | The share of the civilian noninstitutional population working or actively looking for work |
| Employment-population ratio | 59.7% in September 2025, according to the BLS | The share of the civilian noninstitutional population that is employed |
The BLS release also said household data for October 2025 would not be collected because of a lapse in appropriations. That limits what that month’s household survey can show; it does not turn the September figures into a measure of the entire second term. The figures above come from the BLS September 2025 employment release.
How many jobs have been added or lost?
FactCheck.org, using BLS data through June 2026, reported a net gain of 716,000 nonfarm jobs since January 2025. That total combines gains and losses across sectors; it does not mean the job market was strong in every month or industry. FactCheck.org noted that later revisions may change these period-specific figures.
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| Employment category | Change from January 2025 through June 2026 |
|---|---|
| Total nonfarm employment | Up 716,000 |
| Federal employment | Down 324,000 |
| Private employment | Up 902,000 |
The private-sector gain was larger than the net total because federal job losses offset part of it. These are separate payroll components, not evidence by themselves that a particular policy caused either the gains or losses. The figures are from FactCheck.org’s July 2026 review, which cites BLS data.
Why unemployment alone can mislead
The unemployment rate counts people without a job who are actively looking for work as a share of the labor force. Someone who stops looking is generally no longer counted as unemployed, though that person can still matter to the broader question of how many people are working. That is why participation and the employment-population ratio help put the unemployment rate in context.
FactCheck.org reported that participation fell from 62.6% in January 2025 to 61.5% in June 2026. It also noted that participation has been declining over the longer term as the population ages and more people retire. A falling rate therefore needs demographic context; it does not, on its own, establish that a particular administration’s policies pushed people out of work.
What CBO says tariffs could do to employment
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the 2025 trade-policy changes will reduce employment relative to a counterfactual in which those changes did not occur. This is an estimate of the difference between two modeled paths—not a direct count of jobs lost solely because of tariffs.
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallCBO describes several channels behind that projection. Tariffs raise costs for imported inputs; the resulting changes are expected to temporarily raise inflation, reduce households’ purchasing power and slow real investment. CBO also expects increased domestic production and relocation investment in sectors that compete with imports to partly offset those effects. Its 2026–2036 economic outlook says the policies, together with actions by major trading partners, will “reduce employment in relation to what would have occurred without the changes in trade policy.”
CBO’s outlook describes the effective tariff rate as of November 2025 as 13 percentage points above the roughly 2% 2024 import tariff rate. That is a dated estimate, not a current tariff rate. CBO’s broader projections also account for reduced net immigration, which weakens labor-force growth, and for the 2025 reconciliation law. The law’s demand effects support near-term hiring, while some of its provisions can also affect labor supply. These interacting assumptions matter when interpreting a forecast; they are not observed counts of jobs attributable to any one policy. See also CBO’s 2026–2028 economic view.
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What participation and immigration estimates can—and cannot—show
The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), summarizing BLS trends, reported that average U.S. labor-force growth exceeded 1.3 million workers a year from 2014 to 2024, with more than half of that growth coming from immigrant-worker growth. NFAP also reported declines in foreign-born workers and the total labor force in the period it examined. These figures give context for why changes in immigration can affect labor-force growth, but nativity estimates have limitations tied to the household survey and population controls.
Those estimates cannot be treated as exact counts of immigrants who left the country, or as proof that U.S.-born workers gained or lost jobs because of immigration changes. Labor economist and NFAP Senior Fellow Mark Regets offers a general view, not a measured estimate of current policy effects: “Most economic research shows that immigration increases employment opportunities for the U.S.-born, so it would not be surprising if reducing immigration harms American workers.” The underlying analysis and its qualifications are in NFAP’s March 2026 labor-force brief.
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A December 2025 White House release emphasized private-sector hiring and said: “Since President Trump took office, 100% of the job growth has come in the private sector and among native-born Americans — exactly where it should be.” The release also interpreted a rising unemployment rate as more Americans returning to work. Those are the administration’s claims and interpretation; the statement does not establish that its policies caused the employment outcomes. Its period and data vintage should be kept in mind when comparing it with later figures. The release is available from the White House.
How to judge the claim that Trump is “tanking” the labor market
- For observed job growth, separate the BLS’s monthly payroll estimate from longer period totals, and note the data vintage and endpoint. FactCheck.org’s 716,000 net gain covers January 2025 through June 2026; it is not a tally through today.
- For sector changes, distinguish federal payroll losses from private-sector gains rather than treating one as the whole job market.
- For labor-market slack, read unemployment alongside participation and the employment-population ratio. Each answers a different question.
- For policy effects, distinguish a CBO projection against a no-policy counterfactual from a directly observed count of jobs lost.
The evidence supports concern about cooling job growth and a projected employment cost from the tariff changes. It does not support attributing every change in employment to Trump or treating the labor market as uniformly deteriorating.
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