In the January jobs report released Wednesday – a Schrödinger’s cat of employment snapshots – the seemingly opposed dynamics both held true. “The labor market appears to be stabilizing,” Heather Long, chief economist with Navy Federal Credit Union, told CNN. “I don’t think that one should take this report to show that the labor market is reaccelerating at this point,” he added. That’s because the underlying dynamics of the labor market haven’t dramatically shifted in one month’s time. The case for optimismWednesday’s report indicated that the labor market is neither falling apart nor booming, Hirt noted.

Source: CNN February 11, 2026 20:32 UTC