Jobs Report

A health worker in blue scrubs and a cap pushes a hospital incubator trolley down a long, bright corridor, with other people walking ahead.

For 16 Months, Health Care Has Added More Jobs Than the Whole American Economy

In the year to September, US employers added 496,000 jobs. Health care and social assistance added 520,000, so the rest of the economy together lost jobs. Measured over 12 months, that has been true every month since June 2025. In payroll data back to 1990, the only comparable stretches came around recessions.

By Thomas Gutierrez October 4, 2026

The Great American Insurance Group tower in Cincinnati, a stone-clad skyscraper topped by an open steel lattice crown, seen from below against a blue sky with white clouds.

The Numbers

Insurers Keep Telling Surveys They Will Hire. Payrolls Show 90,000 Fewer Jobs.

The September jobs report added 29,000 jobs and cut 60,000 from the two months before. Inside it, insurance carriers and the businesses around them lost jobs for the 11th month running. They now employ about 90,000 fewer people than in May 2025, a faster fall than in any comparable stretch in data going back to 1990. In the industry's own hiring survey, carriers keep saying the opposite.

By Daniel Okafor 45 hours ago

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For 16 Months, Health Care Has Added More Jobs Than the Whole American Economy

Insurers Keep Telling Surveys They Will Hire. Payrolls Show 90,000 Fewer Jobs.