Jobs Report Disaster Major Warning for the U S Economy

The jobs report was released this morning, and it was a disaster. It was a complete disaster. And I want to show you what happened. For the month of February, the U.S. labor market lost 92,000 jobs. The expectation was that we would add 50,000 jobs. And I just want to give you my honest opinion. I believe that we lost well over 100,000 jobs in February. I mean, you just wait for the revisions to happen. You know that's what's going to happen. Okay, so let me show the trend of job creation over the past four years. So to give you some context, just look at how many jobs we were adding in 2022. 300,000 jobs a month, 400,000, 800,000 jobs. And you can clearly see that the labor market has been weakening. Now 2025 is when we really started to run into problems in the labor markets. Since 2025, we've seen multiple months of jobs lost. And I mean, take a look for yourself. In the months that we do post job gains, they're tiny. 13,000 jobs added a month, 40,000, 60,000. So that's a trend. It doesn't take a professional chart reader to see how we've been faring. Now let's take a look at the rate of unemployment. In January, we were at 4.3%. For February, it's now ticked up higher to 4.4%. So you can clearly see the trend on this one as well. Since 2023, it's been getting worse. Now looking at the challenger report, I want to share this piece of good news with you. In February, company layoffs have decreased by 55% compared to January. And it's fallen by 72% compared to February of last year. However, it's not all good news. It's a mixed bag because, well, the bad news that's offsetting this is the fact that hiring plans have fallen by 56% compared to last year. Okay, a very good question is which industries have been cutting the most? I don't think it's anyone's surprise that tech is continuing to suffer. 11,039 job cuts in February alone for a total of 33,330 job cuts year to date as of the end of February. Education cuts have risen by 96% compared to the same period last year. Manufacturing has seen job cuts increase by 143% compared to the same period last year. Transportation job cuts are up by 872%. And the expectation is that this is just going to get worse as the price of oil rises and supply chains are disrupted. And healthcare, and this is also including healthcare-related products, announced 19,228 job cuts this year, which is the highest in that time period for January, February since 2021. Now, another very good question is why are companies cutting jobs? What's driving this weakening labor markets? And here are the top reasons in 2026, which have been store closings, market and economic conditions, and restructuring and cost cutting. And I know that a lot of people are concerned or at least curious about artificial intelligence, the impact that it's been having on the job markets. So artificial intelligence has been responsible for 10% of total job cuts in February and 8% of job cuts in 2026 so far this year. And I'm telling you, that's actually not good. So 10% might not seem like a lot, but it's trending up and it's accelerating pretty quickly. Because in 2025, AI was responsible for 5% of total job cuts. In 2023, AI was responsible for 3%. And here we are today at 10%. And in my opinion, like I've said this previously, that this is just going to accelerate. And this is going to be a really big impact on white-collar jobs. And if you think you're going to be safe with blue-collar jobs, then well, you got automation, and then you combine automation with artificial intelligence, and then it's like everybody's going to be at risk. Okay, usually, President Trump comes out right away after the jobs report to say something along the lines of, the jobs report was amazing, we are living in the golden age of American prosperity. But as of the time of making this video, he's said nothing. He's been quiet. You can rationalize that it's, oh, Brian, obviously, it's because of the whole situation in Iran. However, President Trump did have the time to post that 401ks are up more under him than they were under President Biden. But something important that I want to point out is that you have to remember that President Trump's tariffs have been ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. And they can't reverse that. And his whole game plan, President Trump's whole game plan was that tariffs would bring economic prosperity by reviving the US manufacturing sector, right? However, the manufacturing sector has been losing jobs. And additionally, now that narrative, the tariff narrative, that's cooked. So President Trump's trying to find other loopholes for implementing tariffs to make them stick. However, if you've been paying attention, those tariffs, they're going to be temporary. And in my opinion, they're going to be ruled illegal as well. They might not be ruled illegal immediately. But you know, that's ultimately what's going to happen. At least that's my opinion. But we're all paying attention to the Mideast. So nobody is really saying this, but I want you to be aware of the situation. And then we have the whole situation of spiking oil prices because of the Strait of Hormuz. The price of oil, WTI, has now breached $90 a barrel. And this is not going to be good for the US economy. Well, the global economy as well. Okay, so only two oil tankers have passed through there, that Strait, yesterday. That's basically a standstill, it's basically closed. And if the price of oil rises, then it's going to hurt consumers, it's hurt consumer discretionary spending, and then that's going to hurt corporate profits. And then what's going to happen? We're going to get more layoffs. So gasoline prices are up again today because, of course, oil prices keep on going up. Today, the national average is $3.32 a gallon. It was $3.25 yesterday. It was at $2.98 a week ago. It was at $2.90 a month ago. And gasoline prices are higher today than they were a year ago. And this is not going to be good for the CPI inflation report. And I'm telling you that that's going to be a problem for the Federal Reserve. So I want you to take a look at this. This is the CME FedWatch tool. The next Federal Reserve meeting is going to take place on March 18th. That's less than two weeks away. There's a 95.6% chance that the Federal Reserve will not cut interest rates at that meeting. That's because the inflation trend is going to be higher. And Powell's not going to want to cut interest rates with elevated inflation. And then the next meeting after that one is going to be on April 29th. And that's going to be Powell's last FOMC meeting as chair of the Federal Reserve. And there's a 79.7% chance that they're not going to cut interest rates at that meeting either. However, I just want you to keep in mind that what you're looking at right here, this is just interest rates. I just want you to know that the Federal Reserve is printing money faster than they were a month ago. But I want to show you this. Three Fed meetings away is on June 17th. And Trump's new Fed chair is going to come into power in the middle of May. So it's going to be the new Fed chair at this meeting. So for the June meeting, there are decent odds that there's going to be an interest rate cut, about a 51.3% chance. So it's going to be basically a coin toss whether they cut interest rates or not. And in my opinion, we will see more interest rate cuts. I would expect it to be in June. Otherwise, why would President Trump have selected that new Fed chair, right? Okay, here's my bets. Here's my prediction on how this is going to go down. My bet is that they're going to say, although inflation is rising, it's under control, it's transitory, it's temporary, something along those lines. And that they have to focus on the weakening labor markets. So it's my belief that they're going to use that, the unemployment rates, as their justification or excuse to cut interest rates. That's because the Federal Reserve has a dual mandate. And regarding the labor markets, the unemployment rate is their biggest indicator. And as I showed you, it's on an upward trend. But listen, as I told you on Monday, I'm getting concerned about the whole economic situation right now, which is why I took defensive measures in the stock markets. And the data is just confirming my beliefs. A weakening labor markets, oil prices on a tear. And that's not leading us down a good path, which is just, okay, it's not inflation. The concern is stagflation. So that's going to be even worse. So listen, I'm just saying that if this war rages on, like there's no de-escalation, then the labor market is going to suffer even more than it has been already. And it's tough, because as I told you, the U.S. cannot afford a recession. Like the numbers, they're not going to add up. Anyways, I just want to share some exciting news with you. So we just opened up our chat room on our Patreon through Discord. If you want to come chat, talk about investments, I invite you to do so. I'll leave a link for you down below. Thank you so much. Please subscribe. And I wish you a very nice day. Take care.