By Emma Ockerman

The economy added 130,000 jobs in January — far more than economists had anticipated — while the unemployment rate edged down slightly to 4.3%, Labor Department data released Wednesday showed.

Still, according to updated 2025 numbers, the job market also added a paltry 181,000 jobs for the entirety of last year, revised down from the earlier-reported growth of 584,000 jobs — the slowest pace of job growth outside recession since 2003.

The releases come after private data released last week indicated the labor market remained bruising in January for out-of-work Americans, with little in the way of new jobs. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had estimated a median gain of about 65,000 jobs in January’s official report, though their projections varied widely: The highest saw 135,000 more jobs, while the lowest saw a loss of 10,000 roles.

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The government’s monthly employment situation report, which includes both the unemployment rate and payroll growth, was meant to be published last Friday before it was delayed by the brief partial government shutdown. That left market-watchers and economists waiting a few extra days for what Bank of America Global Research dubbed the “Super Bowl of jobs reports” and economist Michael Madowitz of the Roosevelt Institute called #ConspiracyTheoryJobsday, since January's report includes standard revisions to the Labor Department’s data to account for unemployment insurance tax records and other adjustments.

Those revisions showed that, for the 12 months ending in March 2025, the economy gained 898,000 fewer jobs than anticipated on a seasonally adjusted basis — though that was an improvement from the preliminary estimate released in September of 911,000 fewer jobs. In all of 2025, meanwhile, job growth averaged about 15,000 positions per month.

Gains for December and November were similarly revised lower, from 50,000 in December to 48,000 and from 56,000 in November to 41,000.

Ahead of this week's batch of jobs data, Trump administration officials had been publicly working to temper expectations, saying less job growth is natural amid a drop in the labor force due to stricter immigration policies and productivity gains.

Emma Ockerman is a reporter covering the economy and labor for Yahoo Finance. You can reach her at emma.ockerman@yahooinc.com.