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Job seekers attended a Los Angeles-area jobs fair in July, 2026.<\/span>Patrick T. Fallon \/AFP via Getty<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Labor Department<\/span> reported Friday<\/a> that American nonfarm employers cut 23,000 jobs in July, a drop some attribute to employers\u2019 wariness to hire amidst tariffs and the costs of the war in Iran.<\/p>\n At the same time, the unemployment rate fell slightly, from 4.2 percent to 4.1 percent, a drop economists attributed not to more people being employed, but rather to fewer people entering the labor force.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rate dropped to 4.1 percent in large part because labor force growth has stalled, not because opportunity is expanding,\u201d Angela Hanks, chief of policy programs at the Century Foundation think tank, told CBS News.<\/a><\/p>\n Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, spoke to reporters this morning. He cited a burst in construction as a driver of American jobs. But experts have pointed to the boom in data centers as the primary driver of nonresidential construction growth this year\u2014and the vast majority of those jobs are temporary. <\/p>\n On Fox Business, Hassett said this month\u2019s job losses are seasonal, pointing to a \u201cbig decline in hospitality workers around the end of the World Cup.\u201d He talked about construction, but did not bring up the healthcare sector, which has been the largest driver of job growth in the country for the past several years. Healthcare and education combined have accounted for more than 75 percent of all private-sector job gains since 2023, according to researchers for the ADP National Employment Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n Administration officials are optimistic that this month\u2019s numbers may be just a blip. \u201cIn the end, you know, the proof will be in the number that we get next month,\u201d Hassett said, adding that the administration remains \u201cvery bullish.\u201d<\/p>\n Don Beyer, the senior House Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, took a different view of the numbers. \u201cToday\u2019s jobs report is deeply alarming and offers some of the clearest evidence yet that President Trump\u2019s policies are doing serious damage to the American economy,\u201d Beyer wrote in a statement<\/a>. \u201cJob creation has effectively ground to a halt, and businesses simply are not hiring at the pace a healthy economy demands.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n