It’s jobs Friday, and we’re about to learn if the labor market’s “deep freeze” continued to thaw in February.
Economists expect the US added 55,000 jobs and the unemployment rate held steady at a fairly low 4.3%. Last month’s report showed a surprisingly strong job gain in January, but revisions to last year’s data meant 2025 as a whole saw the weakest growth outside a recession in over 20 years.
We’ll be watching to see if the job market keeps heating up, or if January’s strength was just a blip.
Check here for updates as we gear up for the report at 8:30 ET, when we’ll break down all the details you need to know.
Markets end a bumpy week dominated by Iran
At the end of a week in which market narratives have been dominated by the war in Iran and the sharp spike in oil prices it triggered, futures are pointing to a small drop in US stocks on Friday.
As of just after 6 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and the Nasdaq all look set to open between 0.2% and 0.5% lower on the day. The Dow is set to shed around 110 points at the open, adding to the precipitous drop of nearly 800 points it saw during a painful session on Thursday.
With the index heavily weighted to industrials, a 7% jump in oil prices on the day was the catalyst for the Dow’s heavy losses on Thursday.
Elsewhere in markets on Friday, oil has pushed higher once again, with West Texas Intermediate up 3.7%, or $3 per barrel, to $84. Brent, the international benchmark, is 1.8% higher at $87 per barrel.
Stocks in Europe are somewhat becalmed, with both the UK’s FTSE 100 benchmark and Germany’s DAX almost entirely flat.
What we learned from the last jobs report
The US beat job growth expectations, adding 130,000 jobs in January, with the healthcare sector accounting for almost two-thirds of that. The report also unveiled revised data for 2025; it turns out the economy only added 181,000 jobs, way softer than the 584,000 previously reported.
That marks the lowest annual job growth since 2003, outside the deep recessions following the 2008 financial crisis and 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate ticked down in January from 4.4% to 4.3%.
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