Jobs Growth, At Long Last

Job seekers endured a long ordeal in 2025, applying and waiting months and months—only to discover that firms just weren’t adding jobs. But this year is turning out to be a decidedly different story… so far.

According to the latest US government report, some 130,000 new jobs were created in January. What surprised experts and sent shock waves through the economy wasn’t just that businesses added jobs—it was the unexpectedly high number of them. The first month of the year not only exceeded expectations in terms of jobs added; it also hit nearly three-quarters of the total (181,000 jobs) for all of 2025. “The overall sentiment going into this year wasn’t gloomy, but it wasn’t blue skies either,” says Justin Ripley, a senior client partner in the Global Industrial practice at Korn Ferry. “The data surprised a lot of people.”

To be sure, the combined 38,000 jobs added in manufacturing and construction (both of which were down or flat for most of last year) was one of the report’s biggest surprises. But Ripley says there’s a catch: Most of that hiring can be traced to new data-center and semiconductor-facility construction during 2025. “The data lags the actual growth,” he says. Moreover, he observes, hiring is uneven within the sector, with some areas hot, like aerospace and infrastructure, and others, such as automotive and warehousing, struggling to fill roles.

David Farris, sector lead for the Professional Services practice at Korn Ferry, says he’s seeing the same dynamic play out with his clients. Even though business and professional services added 34,000 positions in January, “hiring is targeted and cautious right now,” he notes. He attributes the growth to two developments at firms: bringing in talent to help move AI projects from pilot to deployment; and—ironically— hiring back people who were cut last year because of AI. One recent report estimated that between this year and next, firms will rehire 50% of the people laid off from customer- or client-facing roles. “Firms realize they may have been too aggressive around layoffs,” Farris says.

Not everyone feels that way, of course. Even before the jobs data came out, officials were preparing investors for “headwinds,” and some critics are already predicting a downward revision of the 130,000 figure. January, say experts, is historically a strong month for hiring, and even though the overall figure topped estimates, just two industries—healthcare and social assistance—accounted for the bulk of the hiring, as they did last year. Sectors like financial services, retail, and hospitality are continuing to lose jobs. “Firms are hiring when they have projects or work,” says Farris. “They aren’t yet hiring for growth.”

Still, Ripley says, any sign of growth in hiring is a good sign. But he remains pragmatic about the month-to-month outlook, noting that firms aren’t pulling back on investing in AI and automation. He considers last month’s job growth to be neither an anomaly nor a harbinger of things to come. As he puts it, “Whenever there is uncertainty, hiring is lumpy. And right now, there’s still a lot of uncertainty.”

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