Hidden headline - large parts of the US economy lost jobs in 2025

I also caught an article which discussed how this week’s ADP private sector jobs report showed parts of the jobs market are going in different, and how that’s hurting the prospects for younger Americans looking to break into certain professions.

ADP’s December report, released [Wednesday], showed the U.S. economy’s private sector added 41,000 roles in the run-up to Christmas. This bounce back could in part be linked to seasonality around the holidays. But optimists might suggest it hints at a potential turnaround from 2025’s low-hire, low-fire environment.

Among the sectors that added the most roles were leisure and hospitality, which added 24,000 roles, and trade and transportation, which added 11,000 roles. Conversely, sectors such as professional and business services lost 29,000 jobs while information services dropped 12,000 jobs.

The shift from white-collar office hiring—which went into overdrive during the COVID pandemic—to blue-collar roles in personal services, transportation, and hospitality is in-keeping with Dr Nela Richardson’s take on the labor market as a whole: Change is so rapid that even year to year, labor market entrants are facing a new set of hoops to jump through.

Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, said new graduates are struggling in the current jobs market. Responding to a question from Fortune during a media roundtable following the December data release, she said: “If you think of a recent college graduate compared to maybe their older brother or sister, it’s not the same jobs market. If you were looking for a job in 2023, and you were a young person, you could probably name your price: You could work from home, you could work remotely, there were a lot of different benefits.”

This also bears out in the BLS jobs report from Friday. Health care employment kept rising at the end of December (+21,100), and added nearly 405,000 jobs for all of 2025.

Relatedly, social assistance also featured strong job growth in December, with 17,400 jobs added and 308,000 since December 2024. However, contrast the combined growth in the Health Care/Social Assistance categories with the rest of the service economy.

That “Rest of the Service Sector” category accounts for 2/3 of the 136.1 million private sector jobs in America. And that part was up by barely more than 90,000 nationwide. Yikes.

Among those other parts of the service economy, professional and business services lost 9,000 jobs in December, and lost 97,000 jobs for all of 2025. And parts of those sectors had it especially bad in 2025.

Change in jobs, Dec 2024-Dec 2025
Temporary Help Services -99,200
Computer Systems Designs/Related Services -46,800
Business Support Services -29,900
Scientific Research/Development Services -19,600

Then combine it with a loss of 70,000 jobs in the goods sector for 2025, and throw in another loss of 149,000 in government, and most areas in the jobs market are in recessionary conditions. The growth in health care and social assistance has masked a decline in jobs for the vast majority of sectors in 2025, and that may explain why the Federal Reserve cut rates more than you’d think in a time when inflation is still running around 3%.

Oh, and 2026 is starting with large spikes in health care premiums, likely leading to a decline in the number of Americans having health insurance and/or getting medical services. So that’s a serious headwind for one of the few areas that were hiring in 2025.

No wonder why so many Americans are down on the economy these days, This is the worst non-COVID jobs market in 15 years, and the first declining non-COVID market in nearly 20. Oh, but the extra few dollars you get from your tax refund in 3 months will change all of this for 2026. Surrrrre it will.