A trending chart is drawing attention to what’s happened in the U.S. job market since President Donald Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day”, the day his new tariffs took effect in April 2025.
The data shows a steep decline in job growth, flipping from consistent monthly gains to a string of weak reports, some even in the red.
Posted by former White House official Marc Short, the chart highlights monthly changes in nonfarm employment over the past two years.
The chart makes it clear: job growth took a major hit right after the tariffs were introduced.
Between January 2024 and March 2025, the economy was regularly adding more than 100,000 jobs a month, with some months topping 300,000.
But after tariffs kicked in, that momentum reversed. April 2025 saw modest gains, but they were followed by negative numbers in multiple months.
August brought the sharpest decline, with job losses nearing 200,000.
Downward Revisions Raise More Red Flags
The Kobeissi Letter, a popular finance newsletter, added to the worry with a post on X.
“This is concerning: US job numbers have been revised down in all 11 months in 2025 by a total of -624,000 jobs,” the post said.
That means each report was initially more optimistic than the reality. On average, monthly job numbers were revised down by over 56,000.
November’s jobs report was cut to +56,000 after revisions. October was even worse, slashed by 68,000 to -173,000, the weakest single-month reading since December 2020.
The Kobeissi Letter added, “If this average pace continues, the December jobs report would be revised down to ~-6,700 from the initially reported +50,000.
Factory Jobs Were Supposed to Boom. They Didn’t.
Trump’s campaign and early second-term promises centered on bringing back American manufacturing.
But so far, factory employment has moved in the opposite direction. Since April 2025, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost more than 70,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
December alone saw a decline of 8,000 factory jobs, pushing the total number of manufacturing workers down to 12.69 million, the lowest since March 2022.
J.B. Brown, CEO of BCI Solutions, a small metal foundry in Indiana, told Reuters, “Every time I hear that manufacturing is booming, I scream at the TV.”
His company has shrunk from 240 employees to just 130 over the past two years, its lowest headcount since at least 1993.
Brown said they’re running at 52% capacity, a record low for the business. “I’ve never been below 70 to 65%,” he said.
Broader Labor Market Still Stagnant
Despite headline unemployment ticking down to 4.4% in December, experts warn that the real picture is more complicated.
Revisions have consistently reduced job creation estimates, and the overall pace of hiring has slowed sharply.
Richmond Federal Reserve President Tom Barkin told reporters, “It is hard to find businesses outside of the AI ecosystem or healthcare that are talking about hiring.”
That trend is confirmed by economist Luke Tilley of Wilmington Trust, who said, “The healthcare sector is the only sector that is adding jobs right now, and it always does. It’s completely insensitive to the economic cycle.”
The slowdown hasn’t hit all groups equally. Black unemployment has risen from 6.2% in January 2025 to 7.5% in recent months.
Meanwhile, white unemployment has remained steady, between 3.5% and 3.8%.
Political Fallout and Legal Questions
While the White House touts tariff revenue, reportedly around $30 billion a month, many Americans are still grappling with high prices and job insecurity.
The U.S. Supreme Court is also expected to rule soon on whether Trump’s use of national security laws to impose the tariffs was legal.
Economists say the problem is bigger than just tariffs. America’s aging population, high labor costs, and a consumer economy focused on services make it difficult to trigger a manufacturing revival with trade policy alone.
Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab, wrote, “A low-hire/low-fire environment can’t last forever in a growing economy. While a long-stagnant labor market might not be as directly alarming as an obviously broken one, it can still feel quite broken for many job seekers.”
For now, the data paints a sobering picture: the “Liberation Day” tariffs may have reshuffled trade, but they also seem to have choked off the very job growth they were meant to spark.