January 2025 Employment Situation — 2025-02-07

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 143,000 in January, and the unemployment rate edged down to 4.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, retail trade, and social assistance. Employment declined in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.0 percent in January, after accounting for the annual adjustments to the population controls. The number of unemployed people, at 6.8 million, changed little over the month. (See table A-1.