The mainstream media was predictably quick to denounce the labor market as weak according to November’s jobs report, but the talking heads are simply wrong. That alleged weakness is almost entirely confined to government bureaucrats and foreign workers, while private industry is employing more Americans.
These latest data were delayed because of the Democrat-imposed government shutdown, but nevertheless paint a very clear picture: the Trump administration is making good on its promise to right-size government and “reprivatize” the economy, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has put it.
This was the best November ever for employment among native-born Americans, up more than 2.6 million over the last 12 months and setting a record, albeit on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Conversely, the number of foreign-born workers with jobs declined over this period by 21,000.
This means that all the net job growth over the last year has gone to American workers, not their foreign-born counterparts. It’s a stark contrast to November 2024 when Joe Biden was president and native-born Americans saw an annual loss of almost 1.1 million jobs. During those 12 months, all net job growth went to foreign-born workers.
President Donald Trump has also reversed the Biden-era trend of relying on government hiring to boost jobs numbers, which made the labor market look stronger than it really was. Now, as layoffs accelerate across the bloated federal government, it’s dragging down the headline jobs numbers but is actually a sign of improvement.
The total number of jobs in November fell by 41,000, but that was due to government layoffs, with the private sector adding 69,000 jobs last month. Similarly, total job growth has increased by 687,000 since January, when Mr. Trump took office, a figure that some consider underwhelming. But consider that federal payrolls have plummeted during that time by a whopping 271,000.
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This decline has not only wiped out all the bureaucrats hired during the Biden era but has reduced federal payrolls to their lowest level in more than a decade. The nation went from hiring to firing federal workers, which in turn went from increasing to decreasing the headline jobs numbers.
That’s why it’s so important to look at these data wholistically and read beyond the headlines. The labor market is actively shifting resources away from the unproductive public sector and towards the productive private sector. Mr. Trump is simultaneously saving taxpayers money by clearing out the deadwood in the bureaucracy, while simultaneously boosting economic growth.
The rate at which the Biden administration was adding government bureaucrats was completely unsustainable. Consider that it takes dozens of private-sector workers to support a single government worker, with the latter’s salary and benefits paid by the taxes of those private-sector employees.
Reducing headcount in the federal government not only reduces an expenditure footed by the taxpayer, but it also transfers human capital to more efficient enterprises. Government bureaucrats are notorious for being inefficient, but that doesn’t cut it in the private sector. Once those people get real jobs, they’re forced to be productive if they want to stay employed.
Increased productivity and efficiency contribute more to the economy and therefore increase overall economic growth. It’s a win-win for the country as the government shrinks and the real economy grows.
And although the labor market is clearly moving in the right direction, there’s still more work to be done. For example, full-time job growth, adjusted for population, has been anemic for more than three years.
Still, it’s amazing that the Trump administration has been able to oversee this level of net job growth, given the vast numbers of bureaucrats being fired and illegal aliens leaving the country. Unlike during the Biden administration, all labor market growth this year has been driven by more Americans getting jobs in the private sector.
Many of those who paint the current labor market in a dim light forget that America is not merely an economic zone. Topline figures matter less than the underlying reality, which includes what kinds of jobs are being created and who is getting those jobs. In short, Mr. Trump is dismantling the bureaucracy and returning the labor market to American workers.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. is chief economist and the Richard Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a senior fellow at Unleash Prosperity.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and bold policies, America’s economy is back on track.
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