Markets
Americans line up for job fair.
Americans line up for job fair (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

US employment unexpectedly contracts in February, unemployment rate rises to 4.4%

Event contracts indicate a rate cut in June is a now a very live possibility.

Luke Kawa

The US job market just posted a big negative surprise in February:

  • Nonfarm payrolls growth of -92,000 (estimate: +55,000).

  • An unemployment rate of 4.4% (estimate: 4.3%).

Employment growth for the prior two months was revised lower by 69,000.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF extended losses to fall to premarket lows in the wake of this ugly print.

Event contracts showed the odds of a Fed rate cut in June jumping to around 50% in the minutes following this data, from less than 40% beforehand.

Ahead of the release, the prediction market-implied probability of the unemployment rate being 4.3% or lower was roughly 60%.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Bespoke Investment Group analyst George Pearkes suggested that strikes weighed on jobs in the healthcare industry, a critical source of employment growth for the US economy in recent years, over the course of the month:

The huge drop was mostly due to health care. This is almost entirely because of strikes...those hit Doctors' offices for a 37.4k MoM loss in jobs counted but those are temporary and will reverse.

[image or embed]

— George Pearkes (@peark.es) March 6, 2026 at 8:35 AM

“This is about a labor market that is so soft that it cannot withstand a strike of -31k physicians in health care, because no one else is hiring,” wrote Omair Sharif, president of Inflation Insights.

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Nike sinks to lowest level since 2014 after warning of “challenged” sales environment in Q4 report

Did Nike do it?

Investors had a mixed reaction after the global sports apparel company reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. Shares initially rose 5% as Nike beat out Wall Street expectations amid a hefty tariff refund bonus. However, the stock then sank to its lowest level since August 2014 in postmarket trading.

Here are the Q4 numbers:

  • Revenue of $11.0 billion (estimate: $10.8 billion).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.20 (estimate: $0.12).

Ahead of this report, Nike warned that results would be flattered by a one-time tariff refund (now estimated at roughly $0.52 per share for the bottom line). That gave the company an extra cushion in snapping its streak of seven quarters of year-over-year profit declines.

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