U.S. Labor Market Remains More Resilient Than Anticipated

The U.S. labor market continued to persevere in June despite economic uncertainty. Employers added 147,000 workers to payrolls in June 2025, according to a survey of businesses by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those additions were up slightly from the 144,000 jobs added in May and were well above economists’ expectations of fewer than 118,000 job additions. Job gains in April and May were revised up by 11,000 and 5,000, respectively, equating to 16,000 more positions added than previously reported. The Government sector (+73,000 jobs) added the most jobs in June, led by increased hiring in State Government (+47,000 jobs) and Local Government (+33,000 jobs), while Federal Government (-7,000 jobs) continued to shed jobs. The Education/Health Services sector (+51,000 jobs) had the second-largest job increase during the month. Notable job losses were seen in Professional/Business Services (-7,000 jobs) and Manufacturing (-7,000 jobs). The only other major industries to lose jobs during June were Other Services (-5,000 jobs) and Mining/Logging (-2,000 jobs). Meanwhile, the unemployment rate (U3 or headline unemployment rate, which is seasonally adjusted, and is a survey of households) has registered in the narrow range of 4% to 4.2% over the past 14 months and came in at 4.1% in June. That was down from 4.2% in May and below expectations of 4.3%.  

This post is part of a series analyzing employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For more on this data, read previous posts on Job Growth.