Research & Data
Private-sector establishments added 7.4 million jobs and cut 7.3 million in the first three months of 2026, a churn of nearly 15 million positions that netted out to a gain of just 88,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday, Oct. 28.
The figures come from the Business Employment Dynamics program, which tracks job creation and destruction at individual private-sector establishments. They cover the first quarter of 2026, measured from December 2025 to March 2026, not current conditions. The data are built from Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages records, which rely largely on quarterly unemployment insurance reports that businesses file with state workforce agencies, and they arrive about seven months after the quarter ends, so they offer a detailed but delayed look at how the labor market was moving early in the year.
Fewer jobs created, about as many lost
Gross job gains, the sum of jobs added at establishments that opened or expanded, totaled 7,381,000 in the first quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis. That was 478,000 fewer than in the fourth quarter of 2025, when gains were 7,859,000, and the lowest total in the five quarters shown in the release. Expanding establishments accounted for 5,900,000 of the gains and newly opening establishments for 1,481,000.
Gross job losses, the jobs cut at establishments that contracted or closed, rose by 43,000 to 7,293,000. Contracting establishments shed 5,829,000 jobs and closing establishments 1,464,000.
Both gains and losses equaled 5.5% of private-sector employment. The resulting net increase of 88,000 compares with a net gain of 609,000 in the fourth quarter of 2025. In the three quarters before that, net change was positive 262,000 in the first quarter of 2025, then negative in the second and third quarters, at minus 295,000 and minus 115,000.
Births and deaths
Business Employment Dynamics also counts establishments that are entirely new or permanently gone. In the first quarter of 2026, there were 323,000 establishment births, which accounted for 949,000 jobs. Data on establishment deaths lag further behind, because BLS waits three quarters to determine whether a closing is permanent or a temporary shutdown. The latest available, for the second quarter of 2025, show 310,000 establishments closing permanently, with the loss of 923,000 jobs.
Births are a subset of openings; openings also include seasonal and other reopenings, which births exclude. That is why the 949,000 jobs at new establishments are smaller than the 1.48 million jobs at all opening establishments.
Construction and retail up, transportation down
Gross job gains exceeded gross job losses in six of the 13 industry sectors. Construction posted the largest net increase, 112,000, followed by education and health services at 92,000 and retail trade at 77,000. Natural resources and mining, information and utilities also had small net gains.
The largest net decline was in transportation and warehousing, where gains of 286,000 fell well short of losses of 448,000, for a net loss of 162,000. Professional and business services lost a net 46,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality 37,000, manufacturing 30,000, financial activities 23,000 and wholesale trade 19,000. Overall, goods-producing industries gained a net 96,000 jobs while service-providing industries lost 8,000.
Gross job gains exceeded losses in 29 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Large firms carried the quarter
When the data are grouped by the size of the firm rather than the individual establishment, firms with 250 or more employees accounted for the growth, with a net gain of 255,000 jobs. Firms with 1 to 49 employees had a net decrease of 67,000, and firms with 50 to 249 employees lost a net 5,000.
The firm-size figures do not add up to the establishment totals. BLS notes that gains and losses at different establishments of the same firm offset one another when combined, and that the firm-level series is seasonally adjusted independently. On a firm basis, gross gains were 5,784,000, losses 5,601,000 and the net change 183,000.
What the churn means
Even in a quarter when private employment barely grew on net, establishments created about 7.4 million jobs. For job seekers, that churn is where openings come from: positions are created at expanding businesses and new locations even as others are cut.
The release incorporates annual revisions, which cover the previous four quarters of unadjusted data and five years of seasonally adjusted data, so earlier quarterly figures may differ from those first published. Data for the second quarter of 2026 are scheduled for release on Jan. 27, 2027.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Business Employment Dynamics — First Quarter 2026,” October 28, 2026. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cewbd.nr0.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 3. Private sector gross job gains and losses by industry, seasonally adjusted,” October 28, 2026. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cewbd.t03.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 4. Private sector gross job gains and losses by firm size, seasonally adjusted,” October 28, 2026. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cewbd.t04.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Business Employment Dynamics Technical Note,” October 28, 2026. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cewbd.tn.htm
Featured photo: A residential construction worker uses fall-prevention equipment while framing a house in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2012 (NIOSH photograph). Representative image; not connected to the data in the report. Photo: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). Cropped from the original.
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