MAGA CONSEQUENCES: Only 22,000 Jobs Added in August, Unemployment Jumps to 4.3%, a 4-Year High

In addition, June was adjusted to -13,000, breaking a historic run.

September 5, 2025

• The latest employment snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints a bleak picture of the current state of the economy under President Donald Trump.

• Labor market deterioration: Just 22,0000 jobs were added in August, dramatically lower than economists’ expectations for 76,500 new roles.

• Negative job growth: For the first time in nearly four years, the economy lost jobs, with a decline of 13,000 positions in June.

• Rising unemployment: The jobless rate rose to 4.3%, the highest level since 2021.

• Stagnation: The data underscores the extent to which consumers and businesses are struggling to accommodate the weight of tariffs, stubborn inflation, the decline in America’s crucial immigrant workforce and overall economic uncertainty.

‘Paralyzed’ manufacturers keep shedding jobs despite tariffs

President Donald Trump is on a mission to make American manufacturing jobs great again by deploying historically high tariffs on imports.

That effort is off to a slow start, at best, and at worst is backfiring by causing job loss.

US manufacturers shed another 12,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That marks the fourth consecutive month of job loss for US manufacturers. The industry has slashed 42,000 jobs since April, when Trump shocked investors with massive tariffs that he later paused and dialed back.

While it’s far too early to deliver a verdict on Trump’s use of tariffs to reshore manufacturing jobs, economists say the chaotic nature of trade policy to date is undermining his efforts.

“What we’re seeing is a sector paralyzed by uncertainty,” Matthew Martin, senior US economist at Oxford Economics, told CNN on Friday.

Faced with immense uncertainty on where tariffs will settle, some manufacturers are laying off workers. Others are struggling from higher costs caused by Trump tariffs on key inputs including steel, aluminum and copper.

Surveys of manufacturers reveal frustration over the volatile trade policy.

“Tariff Bingo is tough,” one furniture manufacturer told the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in a survey released last week. “We are probably going out of business within 90 days.”

A transportation equipment manufacturing executive said the current environment in the industry is much worse” than the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009.

“There is absolutely no activity in the transportation equipment industry. This is 100% attributable to current tariff policy and the uncertainty it has created,” the executive told the Institute for Supply Management.