The Trump admin have just shocked economists. The Department of Labor have just released a job report for September and the numbers are double what economists expected. The job reports for September were delayed due to the recent government shutdown, but the numbers show U.S. employers added 119,000 jobs. Economists were expecting the number to be more around 50,000. ‘Jobs report BLOWS PAST EXPECTATIONS, defying hiring slowdown’ — with job gains going to native-born American workers. AMERICA FIRST. pic.twitter.com/yAkvUiXinW — The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 20, 2025 PBS broke down the numbers from the report: U.S. employers added a surprisingly solid 119,000 jobs in September, the government said, issuing a key economic report that had been delayed for seven weeks by the federal government shutdown. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% in September, highest since October 2021 and up from 4.3% in August, the Labor Department said Thursday. The unemployment rate rose partly because 470,000 people entered the labor market — either working or looking for work — in September and not all of them found jobs right away. The increase in payrolls was more than double the 50,000 economists had forecast. But Labor Department revisions showed that the economy lost 4,000 jobs in August instead of gaining 22,000 as originally reported. Altogether, revisions shaved 33,000 jobs off July and August payrolls. Health care and social assistance firms added more than 57,000 jobs in September, construction companies 19,000 and retailers almost 14,000. But factories shed 6,000 jobs and the federal government lost 3,000. Average hourly wages rose just 0.2% from August and 3.8% from a year earlier, edging closer to the 3.5% year-over-year increase that the Federal Reserve’s inflation fighters like to see. During the 43-day U.S. government shutdown, investors, businesses, policymakers and the Federal Reserve were groping in the dark for clues about the health of the American job market because federal workers had been furloughed and couldn’t collect the data. BREAKING: Thanks to President Trump, the September jobs report CRUSHED economists expectations! pic.twitter.com/C1Voxhaedh — The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 20, 2025 CBS reported what this new report means for the U.S. economy: The September employment figures suggest job growth remains firm amid concerns that the labor market was at risk of stalling. “The September jobs report may be backward-looking, but offers reassurance that the labor market wasn’t crumbling before the government shutdown,” Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said in a research note. Although job growth has weakened, “it is not collapsing,” added Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics. The hiring numbers will shape Federal Reserve officials’ decision on whether to cut interest rates at their next meeting in December. Art Hogan, chief market strategist at investment firm B. Riley Financial, thinks the odds of a rate cut have “diminished significantly” given there will not be a full October employment report and the November report won’t be issued until after the Fed meets in December. Ashworth expects the Fed to delay its next rate cut until January. The probability of a rate cut now stands at 22%, according to economists polled by FactSet.