Unfortunately, that figure never recovered from the pandemic. It also never recovered from a major drop after the 2008 recession.

US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February (bbc.com)

524 points | 23 hours ago | 733 comments

1. Kaiser Permanente healthcare strike sidelined 28,000 workers. The strike ended on February 23rd.

2. The severe weather resulting in two major snow storms made it so that lots of businesses were simply closed for a few days. This meant they couldn’t be properly surveyed.

It still is not good, but the magnitude of how not good is worsened by specific one-time circumstances. Make of that what you will.

I can’t see the FT article but this one. Talks a bit about these circumstances: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/06/february-2026-jobs-report.ht...