The U.S. economy added just 57,000 jobs in June, a worrying sign for labor market stability as wage growth tracked below inflation for a third consecutive month.
Limited time: Save 25% on NBC News subscription
Get exclusive reporting, live Q&As and ad-free reading.
In June, average hourly earnings increased by 3.5%, which remains far below the most recent inflation reading of 4.2%.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% from 4.3%. June’s total was the lightest month of hiring since February, when the labor market contracted.
The report also included sharp downward revisions for prior months. Hiring in April was cut by 31,000 jobs, and May was revised down by 43,000.
Revisions are a normal part of the data collection process and do not signal an error in prior months’ data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which collects the data, says they primarily result “from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates.”
The average monthly change over the last 12 months is now just 36,000 jobs, the BLS said.
Another troubling sign flagged by the bureau was that hiring in the health care sector slowed to just 22,000 jobs. That’s slower than its 38,000 monthly average over the last year.
In 2025, that sector accounted for almost all of the overall job growth, and it has continued to be the primary driver of labor market growth this year.
Leisure and hospitality contracted by 61,000 jobs in June. Many economists have watched this metric closely, as hotel and restaurant visits can offer an early warning sign of consumer spending pullbacks.
Additionally, the BLS warned that hiring in oil and gas, construction, manufacturing, retail trade, transportation, financial activities and government all “showed little or no change over the month.”
The jobs report is being issued on Thursday instead of its traditional Friday release because U.S. bond and stock markets will be closed Friday, July 3, in observance of Independence Day.
Some on Wall Street saw silver linings in the report.
“The June jobs report wasn’t quite as peppy as the prior three reports, but it still points to overall general health in the labor market,” JPMorgan Chase chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli said.
“Before today’s revisions, the nonfarm job growth figures over the March-May period stood out among other job data as exceptionally strong,” Feroli said, while adding that after revisions he still views recent hiring trends as decent.
The U.S. labor market has spent the past three months trying to get back on solid footing after several months of net job losses near the end of 2025.
After May’s report many economists wondered whether the World Cup, which runs from early June through mid-July at 11 U.S. stadiums, would boost hospitality and leisure hiring. But Feroli says that is not the case.
“There continues to be no obvious sign of a World Cup jobs boost,” he wrote on Thursday.
The job gains come right before what some experts say will likely be a summer slowdown.
“While June data still seem like a stable enough labor market, we continue to think the low-hiring environment will imply further weakening in job growth and rising unemployment later in the year,” Citigroup economists said after the report on Thursday.
Some also warned that recent data is more an indicator of stabilization rather than strength.
Jennifer Timmerman, a senior investment strategy analyst at Wells Fargo, said that “overall, we view the broad mosaic of jobs data as consistent with labor-market stabilization from weakness in late 2025, rather than renewed strength.”
