MaddowBlog-Trump's 'real numbers' on private sector job growth are neither real nor numbers

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The president claimed that the private sector has generated a “record number of jobs” this year. Reality tells a very different story.

Trump insisted that the US private sector has created a “record number of jobs,” adding, “These are real numbers.”

It’s worth appreciating just how profoundly wrong this is: Excluding the pandemic, 2025 has been the worst year for private-sector jobs since the Great Recession.

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-10-29T17:22:27.629Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trumps-real-numbers-private-sector-job-growth-are-neither-real-numbers-rcna240558

For Americans concerned about the U.S. job market, it’s become increasingly difficult to remain optimistic. Although the government shutdown has prevented some of the most recent data from reaching the public, we already know that in the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, job growth has slowed to levels unseen since the Great Recession.....

The day after that report was published, however, the American president pushed an unfortunate boast at an event in South Korea.

Trump: "100% of all new jobs created in America under my new administration have been created by the private sector. Think of that. The government created no new jobs. The private sector created the record number of jobs that we're talking about. That's a country ... these are real numbers."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-10-29T04:37:20.883Z

......But of particular interest was the incumbent American president’s claim that the private sector has generated a “record number of jobs” — a point Trump punctuated by bragging about his “real numbers.”

Reality tells a very different story.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is part of Trump’s Labor Department, these are the year-by-year totals for private sector job growth, covering January through August. (I’m using August as a cutoff point because the government shutdown blocked the release of the data from September. In other words, I’m using the most up-to-date statistics available.)

2009: -4.3 million

2010: 670,000

2011: 1.5 million

2012: 1.5 million

2013: 1.6 million

2014: 1.9 million

2015: 1.6 million

2016: 1.4 million

2017: 1.5 million

2018: 1.7 million

2019: 1.2 million

2020: -10.2 million

2021: 4.3 million

2022: 3.3 million

2023: 1.3 million

2024: 821,000

2025: 590,000

If Trump wants to argue that the 590,000 private sector jobs created over the first eight months of this year represent an impressive total, fine. He’s welcome to try. But, excluding 2020, when the pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy, this year is the worst year for the private sector job market since the Great Recession.

The White House may not want to talk about this, and the data might not make the president happy, but these are the actual “real numbers.”