Federal News Roundup for Feb. 11, 2026

BLS Report: January U.S. Jobs Growth Stronger Than Expected

Recent headlines have pointed to a U.S. jobs market that is more weakness than wow, more slowdown than speedup:

• Last week’s Workspan Daily News Bytes included “American Layoffs Surged to Highest January Total Since 2009,” referencing the results of the Thursday, Feb. 5, job cuts report from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
• The Economic Policy Institute’s Jan. 9 report, titled “December Jobs Report Shows a Decidedly Weaker Labor Market Than a Year Ago,” used data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to reflect hiring and business softness.

With that as a backdrop, economists and analysts were highly anticipating the BLS January jobs report to gauge where the U.S. economy was heading. Initially scheduled for release on Friday, Feb. 6, it was delayed till Wednesday, Feb. 11, because of the brief government shutdown.

With predictions, including the Dow Jones consensus estimate, pegging job growth at 55,000 positions, the new report showed a glimpse of resurgence. According to the BLS, total American nonfarm payroll employment rose by 130,000 in January, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.3%. The December figure was revised downward, from 50,000 to 48,000.

“It was a January job surge,” Heather Long, the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said in an interview with CNBC. “The surprisingly strong job gains in January were driven mainly by healthcare and social assistance. But it is enough to stabilize the job market and send the unemployment rate slightly lower. This is still a largely frozen job market, but it is stabilizing. That’s an encouraging sign to start the year, especially after the hiring recession in 2025.”

President Donald Trump posted on social platform X, “Great jobs numbers, far greater than expected!”

Among industry sectors:

• Healthcare added 82,000 jobs, with gains in ambulatory services (+50,000), hospitals (+18,000), and nursing and residential care facilities (+13,000). Job growth in healthcare averaged 33,000 per month in 2025.
• Social assistance was up 42,000 jobs, primarily in individual and family services (+38,000).
• Construction added 33,000, reflecting an employment gain in nonresidential specialty trade contractors (+25,000). Employment in construction was essentially flat in 2025.
• Federal government employment continued to decline (-34,000), as some federal employees who accepted a deferred resignation offer in 2025 came off government payrolls. Since reaching a peak in October 2024, sector employment is down by 327,000, or 10.9%.
• Financial services declined by 22,000 and is down by 49,000 since reaching a recent peak in May 2025. Insurance carriers and related activities lost 11,000 jobs over the month.
• There was little change in other major industries, including mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; manufacturing; wholesale trade; retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information; professional and business services; leisure and hospitality; and other services.

Regarding unemployment:

• The jobless rate, at 4.3%, and the number of unemployed people, at 7.4 million, changed little in January. These measures are higher than a year earlier, when the rate was 4.0% and the number of unemployed people was 6.9 million.
• Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for teenagers declined to 13.6%, while the rates for adult men (3.8%), adult women (4.0%), and people who are White (3.7%), Black (7.2%), Asian (4.1%) or Hispanic (4.7%) showed little change.
• The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) changed little during the month, at 1.8 million, but is up by 386,000 from a year prior. The long-term unemployed accounted for 25% of all unemployed people last month.
• Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.5%, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.8%, changed little during the month and have been fairly constant over the year.

Regarding earnings and hours:

• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 15 cents, or 0.4%, to $37.17. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased 3.7%. Hourly earnings for private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 12 cents, or 0.4%, to $31.95.
• The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 0.1 hour to 34.3 hours. In manufacturing, the average workweek increased by 0.1 hour to 40.1 hours, and overtime stayed put at 2.9 hours. The workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased 0.1 hour to 33.8 hours.

DOL Raises Minimum Wage for Certain Federal Contractors

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on Monday, Feb. 9, published a notice in the Federal Register announcing that the minimum wage rate for certain federal government contractors will increase, beginning May 11, 2026.

As a revision to Executive Order 13658, which was established in February 2014, the minimum wage will shift to:

• $13.65 per hour for non-tipped employees performing work on or in connection with covered contracts (up from the current $13.30 rate); and,
• $9.55 per hour for tipped employees performing such work (up from $9.30).

The changes specifically apply to workers performing work on or in connection with federal contracts subject to the Davis-Bacon Act and the Service Contract Act that were entered into, renewed or extended between Jan. 1, 2015, and Jan. 29, 2022, and have not been renewed or extended (pursuant to an exercised option or otherwise) on or after Jan. 30, 2022.

Covered contractors must ensure workers receive no less than the applicable minimum wage rates in effect during each year in which a covered contract is performed. Consistent with related executive orders (i.e., 13838 and 14236), contracts for seasonal recreational services are not subject to the wage changes.

EBSA Activities Recovered $1.4 Billion in 2025

The DOL announced on Jan. 30 that its Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) recovered more than $1.4 billion for retirement, health and welfare benefits plans, participants and beneficiaries in fiscal year 2025, with more than half resulting from the agency’s enforcement actions. 

The FY25 data was published in a fact sheet detailing the recovery of workers’ benefits through various enforcement, outreach and compliance assistance programs, including the voluntary fiduciary correction program, the abandoned plan program, investigations and monetary recoveries from informal complaint resolutions through EBSA’s benefits advisors. 

The agency is responsible for protecting approximately $13.8 trillion in assets for more than 156 million workers, retirees and their families who are covered by approximately 2.6 million health plans, 801,000 private retirement plans and 514,000 additional welfare benefit plans.

WHD Releases Set of Compliance Resources for Employers

The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recently launched several compliance assistance resources to help employers comply with federal labor laws and prevent violations.

The new information tools include:

• A compliance assistance webpage;
• A video series on the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA); and,
• Revamped compliance assistance toolkits for various industries. 

These resources follow the recent reopening of the department’s opinion letter program, which expands the department’s commitment to providing compliance assistance that helps workers, employers and other stakeholders understand how federal labor laws apply in specific workplace situations.

The division also offers the Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program to help employers self-report and resolve potential minimum wage and overtime violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as certain potential violations under the FMLA.

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

For more information and resources related to this article, see the pages below, which offer quick access to all WorldatWork content on these topics:

• Employee Compensation
• Finance and Budgeting
• Organizational Performance