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WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

This is on point. I'm Megna Chakra-Bardi.

The latest U.S. jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected tomorrow.

The monthly report is a very important snapshot of the economy, as you, America's workers,

are literally experiencing it, which industries in the country are adding new jobs or hiring,

which ones aren't, and which industries are losing jobs.

Tomorrow's report will look back at this past month of February.

And when it comes out, I want you to look for something specific.

It's actually something that also popped up in the January jobs report.

That month, the U.S. added roughly 130,000 jobs.

But nearly all of those new jobs were in just one industry. Take a guess as to what it is.

Did you guess health care? Because if you did, you're exactly right. In other words, if you removed

the health care industry from the January jobs report, the American economy would have

added basically zero new private sector jobs in the first month of 2026.

So what does that mean?

And why does it matter?

Well, Guy Berger joins us now.

He's a senior advisor on labor markets at Access Macro and a senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute. He also writes the substack macro mostly. Guy, welcome to on point.

Thank you, Megna. I'm glad to be here.

Okay. So, you know what? Before we dive into the health care part, I'd love if you could sort of set a foundation for us. This 130,000 jobs number

from January, put it in context in comparison to reports, say, post-COVID, because COVID was such

...