Weak jobs report may signal a coming recession: Average job growth just 35,000 over the past three months
Below, EPI economists offer their insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 73,000 jobs added in July.
From EPI senior economist Elise Gould:
Big news in today’s #jobs report are the revisions. The labor market is much weaker than originally reported the last two months. While payrolls grew 73k in July, May and June data were revised down a total of 258k to 19k and 14k, respectively, bringing 3-month average growth down to 35k.
#EconSky— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Aug 1, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Health care jobs grew the strongest in July. Private-sector job losses were reported in professional and business services, manufacturing, and wholesale trade. The surprising uptick in state and local government jobs for June was revised down as federal jobs continued to fall in July.
#NumbersDay— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Aug 1, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Federal cuts continue to cost jobs as federal employment fell another 12k in July. Federal employment is now down 84,000 since January. The latest federal UI claims data for mid-July shows the economic pain continues and the full extent of the job losses won’t be seen until we get data for October.
— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Aug 1, 2025 at 8:11 AM
From EPI chief economist Josh Bivens:
To me, today’s jobs report is what entering a recession looks like. Could we pull up? Sure. But if we look back and end up dating an official recession that starts 3-6 months from now, this is what it would look like today – rapid softening/deterioration in the labor market.
— Josh Bivens (@joshbivens-econ.bsky.social) Aug 1, 2025 at 7:41 AM
From EPI president Heidi Shierholz:
Whoa, the jobs numbers are really bad. With the new July numbers and revisions to May/June, the avg monthly job growth of the last 3 months is 35,000. As Josh says, if we were entering a recession, this is what it would look like.
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz.bsky.social) Aug 1, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Trump’s war on immigrants shows up clearly in the data: the age 16+ immigrant popn has dropped 3.8%—1.9 million—since January. It’s a moral catastrophe, and an economic one. Deporting 1 million immigrants per year will cost ~6 million jobs over Trump’s term.
www.epi.org/publication/…
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz.bsky.social) Aug 1, 2025 at 8:19 AM
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