“There was no manufacturing revival in 2025,” Long said. “Manufacturing was already weak, and the tariffs didn’t help. After that, you started to see other sectors getting worse too.”
White-collar hiring was no stronger. Professional and business services and the information sector both posted net job losses for the year, reflecting persistent layoffs in tech and corporate roles.
“In many ways, 2025 was both a white-collar and a blue-collar jobs recession,” Long said.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, has remained relatively low—but that stability is increasingly misleading, economists say. The jobless rate has risen gradually from 4.0% in January to 4.4% in December, and there are now about 583,000 more unemployed people than a year ago."