February US Nonfarm Payrolls Expected to Rise by 55,000, Unemployment Rate Seen Remaining at 4.3%

02:43 PM EST, 03/05/2026 (MT Newswires) -- US nonfarm payrolls are expected to rise by only 55,000 in February after a 130,000-jobs gain in January, based on a survey compiled by Bloomberg, while the unemployment rate is expected to remain at 4.3% after falling to that point in January.

The February employment report is due to be released at 8:30 am ET Friday.

Layoffs intentions slowed in February after a surge in January, according to a Challenger, Gray and Christmas report, led by the technology and education sectors.

The BLS's private payrolls count, which excludes government payrolls, is expected to increase by 65,000 in February after a jobs gain of 172,000 in January. ADP reported that its measure of private payrolls rose by 63,000 jobs in February after an increase of 11,000 in the previous month.

Initial claims and insured claims were both little changed in the mid-February employment survey week compared with mid-January survey week.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses reported that 33% of small business owners continued to have problems filling current positions in February, up from 31% in January and above the long-term average of 24%.

On the consumer side, the percentage of respondents saying that jobs were "plentiful" in the Conference Board's February consumer confidence survey rose by a 2.2 percentage points to 28.0% while those saying jobs were "hard to get" rose by 1.6 percentage point to 20.6%, widening the gap between the two measures.

Average hourly earnings are expected to increase by 0.3% in February after a 0.4% gain in January, while the year-over-year growth rate is expected to remain at 3.7%. The average workweek is expected to hold steady at 34.3 hours.

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