August 2026 jobs report

… <p>Payroll employment surged 162,000 in August, after being revised up by 55,000 for the previous two months. The public sector added back a net 35,000 jobs, 50,000 of which showed up in local government. The drop in local education was largely reversed. The federal government shed another 5,000 jobs. Employment in federal government has shed 48,000 jobs since the start of the year and is current hovering near 1966 lows.</p> <p>Private sector job gains were driven by leisure and hospitality, which added 62,000 after shedding 75,000 jobs over the last two months. That suggests that the layoffs due to the loss of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of Haitian workers contributed to earlier layoffs, which employers scrambled to replace in August. </p> <p>Healthcare and social assistance added 28,400 in August after adding 13,100 the previous month. That marks a sharp slowdown from earlier in year. TPS workers dominated jobs in the care economy, with more than 100,000 estimated to be working in low-wage largely eldercare jobs. </p> <p>Those jobs were harder to replace, given state cuts to Medicaid. Another cliff on Medicaid will be hit in fiscal 2027. Some $47 billion in transfers to states has been cut, although both sides of the aisle are now weighing whether those cuts will stick.</p> …