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Updated on: August 7, 2026 / 9:02 AM EDT
/ CBS News
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The U.S. economy unexpectedly shed 23,000 jobs in July, undershooting economists' expectations and signaling the job market may be slowing. By the numbersEconomists polled by FactSet forecast employers added 95,000 jobs in July.The unemployment rate in July stood at 4.1%, down from 4.2% in June. The decline largely reflects slower labor force growth, with fewer people entering or remaining in the workforce."The rate dropped to 4.1% in large part because labor force growth has stalled, not because opportunity is expanding," Angela Hanks, chief of policy programs at the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.The Labor Department also revised down the May and June jobs numbers by a combined 103,000, a sign hiring was weaker than previously reported. "Hiring has gone into reverse — the economy actually shed jobs last month — and it turns out many of the jobs we thought were there in previous months never really existed," Nic Puckrin, markets expert and former Goldman Sachs analyst, said in an email.The labor force participation rate — the percentage of the population that is either working or actively looking for work — also fell again, reaching 61.4% in July, the lowest level since February 2021.
