February Jobs Report: Economy Continues to Slow Amid Mass Firing of Public Servants

Nationwide— In February, the economy added 151,000 jobs while the unemployment rate inched up to 4.1%. New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics also shows that 7 million workers were unemployed in February. While the month’s unemployment numbers do indicate a loss of 10,000 federal jobs, they do not reflect all of the thousands of probationary federal employees fired in mid-February by the Trump administration because of a lag in federal payrolls. A federal judge recently ruled that the Office of Personnel Management lacks the legal authority to order these mass firings. Some workers have reportedly been reinstated. This and other cases challenging the terminations continue to be litigated.

“The Trump administration summarily fired food safety inspectors, air traffic controllers, and staff that support care for disabled veterans. These are non-partisan public servants whose work we rely on every day to safely live our lives,” said Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of the National Employment Law Project (NELP). “Yet this is just the beginning. If the administration carries out its plans to fire thousands more public workers, cancel grants and contracts, and dismantle agencies that defend workers from discrimination and protect consumers from being ripped off by unscrupulous  banks and credit card companies, we will not only lose critical public services and protections but risk an economic crisis as a result of the massive, entirely preventable job and funding losses.”

Federal workers are employed in every state—and every Congressional district—nationwide, with 80% of federal workers located outside of the Washington DC metro area.  Approximately 30% of federal employees are veterans.

Laura Padin, director of NELP’s Work Structures program, pointed out  that “if hundreds of thousands of people suddenly lose their jobs, families will not have income to meet their basic needs and local communities will suffer, creating the risk of a recession. This move disproportionately harms Black workers and their families, who make up a significant share of the federal workforce, threatening a critical lifeline to good jobs.”

The industries that added the most jobs in February included health care, financial activities, transportation, and social assistance. Employment in all of these industries would be directly or indirectly impacted by large scale federal layoffs and cuts to public services, grants, and contracts.

NELP has advised federal workers who lost their jobs to apply for unemployment insurance benefits as soon as possible. Yet the unemployment insurance (UI) system overall is not prepared for a recession like the one that federal layoffs and cuts could produce.

To permanently reform the UI system to adequately serve federal workers and all workers who lose their jobs, Congress must reintroduce and pass The Unemployment Insurance Modernization and Recession Readiness Act, introduced in the previous congress by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Representative Don Beyer (D-VA). The bill sets nationwide standards for UI, mandating that states offer at least 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, raising benefit amounts to replace a greater share of workers’ prior earnings, and increasing coverage for part-time workers, temp workers, and workers whose earnings fluctuate over time. The bill also establishes a new, federally funded Jobseekers Allowance to support jobless workers who would not otherwise be covered by unemployment insurance and modernizes the Extended Benefits program that makes additional weeks of unemployment benefits available in times of high unemployment. State policymakers across the country should also act to improve their state unemployment insurance systems to better support workers and the economy.