In January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics posted that 130,000 jobs were added, and the unemployment rate edged down to 4.3% from 4.4%. Job gains occurred in health care, social assistance, and construction, while federal government and financial activities lost jobs.
Expectations from news outlets such as MarketWatch were for 55,000, so the jobs number beat expectations and came in higher than the December jobs number (48,000).
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. of The Heritage Foundation attributed this to Trump.
"Trump was handed an economy that was losing private sector jobs and adding government payrolls, but he successfully flipped the script, and one year later it's all private sector growth while cutting government jobs," Antoni posted on X.
Stephen Moore of Unleash Prosperity was also excited.
"The labor market is shifting to the private sector. Draining the swamp works," Moore posted on X.
Rachel Greszler of Advancing American Freedom was a bit more cautious.
"We might be off to a good start with a strong 130,000 job gains and the unemployment rate edging down," Greszler tells AFN. "Of course, one month is never enough to be a trend. We're going to have to wait a couple months more to see if this is actually a sign of strength and momentum or if it might just be a one-time boost."
When asked what term she might use to describe the job market, Greszler said uncertain.
"We see some signs of strengths in certain areas. We're seeing a significant decline in the federal government in particular, and so there are some private sector gains,” says Greszler.
However, she thinks that there has not been as much hiring or job turnover as seen in the past.
“You actually like to see job turnover because when people are moving from one job to another they're usually moving upwards,” said Greszler. “So, I think there's just some uncertainty out there, and definitely talking to young people, they feel it's not as good a market as it was in the past. A lot of that is just to be determined."
Greszler went on to say that tariffs are weighing on new job creation while tax cuts and pro-growth measures in the One Big Beautiful Bill are helping businesses.
Any revisions on the January 2026 report will be made public when the February jobs report comes out in early March. Revisions are near the bottom of the report. At the bottom of the January 2026 report, readers looking for information on revisions are told that "employment in November and December combined is 17,000 lower than previously reported."
