erratic

The American job market, a pillar of U.S. economic strength since the pandemic, is crumbling under the weight of President Trump’s erratic economic policies.

Uncertain about where things are headed, companies have grown increasingly reluctant to hire, leaving agonized job seekers unable to find work and weighing on consumers who account for 70% of all U.S. economic activity. Their spending has been the engine behind the world’s biggest economy since the COVID-19 disruptions of 2020.

The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — added just 22,000 jobs last month, down from 79,000 in July and well below the 80,000 that economists had expected.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% last month, also worse than expected and the highest since 2021.

“U.S. labor market deterioration intensified in August,’’ Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Market, wrote in a commentary, noting that hiring was “slumping dangerously close to stall speed. This raises the risk of a harder landing for consumer spending and the economy in the months ahead.’’

Alexa Mamoulides, 27, was laid off in the spring from a job at a research publishing company and has been hunting for work ever since. She uses a spreadsheet to track her progress and said she’s applied for 111 positions and had 14 interviews — but hasn’t landed a job yet.

“There have been a lot of ups and downs,” Mamoulides said. “At the beginning I wasn’t too stressed, but now that September is here, I’ve been wondering how much longer it will take. It’s validating that the numbers bear out my experience, but also discouraging.’’

The U.S. job market has lost momentum this year, partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve’s inflation fighters in 2022 and 2023.

But the hiring slump also reflects Trump’s policies, including his sweeping and ever-changing tariffs on imports from almost every country, his crackdown on immigration and purges of the federal workforce.

Also contributing to the job market’s doldrums are an aging population and the threat that artificial intelligence poses to young, entry-level workers.

After revisions shaved 21,000 jobs off June and July payrolls, the U.S. economy is creating fewer than 75,000 jobs a month so far this year, less than half the 2024 average of 168,000 and not even a quarter of the 400,000 jobs added monthly in the hiring boom of 2021-2023.

When the Labor Department put out a disappointing jobs report a month ago, an enraged Trump responded by firing the economist in charge of compiling the numbers and nominating a loyalist to replace her.

“The warning bell that rang in the labor market a month ago just got louder,” Olu Sonola, head of U.S economic research at Fitch Rates, wrote in a commentary. “It’s hard to argue that tariff uncertainty isn’t a key driver of this weakness.”

Trump contends that his protectionist policies are meant to help American manufacturers. But factories shed 12,000 workers last month and 38,000 so far this year. Many manufacturers are hurt, not helped, by Trump’s tariffs on steel, aluminum and other imported raw materials and components.

Construction companies, which rely on immigrant workers vulnerable to stepped-up immigration raids under Trump, cut 7,000 jobs in August, the third straight drop. The sweeping tax-and-spending bill that Trump signed into law July 4 delivered more money for immigration officers, making threats of massive deportations more plausible.

The federal government, its workforce targeted by Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency team, cut 15,000 jobs last month. Diane Swonk, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm KPMG, said the job market “will hit a cliff in October, when 151,000 federal workers who took buyouts will come off the payrolls.’’

And any job gains made last month were remarkably narrow: Healthcare and social assistance companies — a broad category including hospitals and day-care centers — added nearly 47,000 jobs in August and now account for 87% of the private sector jobs created in 2025.

Democrats were quick to pounce on the report, arguing it is evidence that Trump’s policies were damaging the economy and hurting ordinary Americans.

“Americans cannot afford any more of Trump’s disastrous economy. Hiring is frozen, jobless claims are rising, and the unemployment rate is now higher than it has been in years,” said Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. “The president is squeezing every wallet as he chases an illegal tariff agenda that is hiking costs, spooking investment and stunting domestic manufacturing.″

Trump’s sweeping import taxes — tariffs — are taking a toll on businesses that rely on foreign suppliers.

Trick or Treat Studios in Santa Cruz, for instance, gets 50% of its supplies from Mexico, 40% from China and the rest from Thailand. The company, which makes ghoulish replica masks of such horror icons as Chucky the doll from the “Child’s Play” movies as well as costumes, props, action figures and games, has seen its tariff bill rise to $389,000 this year, said co-founder Christopher Zephro. He was forced to raise prices across the board by 15%.

In May, Zephro had to cut 15 employees, or 25% of his workforce. That marked the first time he’s had to lay off staff since he started the company in 2009. ″That’s a lot money that could have been used to hire more people, bring in more product, develop more products,” he said. “We had to do layoffs because of tariffs. It was one of the worst days of my life.”

Josh Hirt, senior economist at the financial services firm Vanguard, said that the tumbling payroll numbers also reflect a reduced supply of workers — the consequence of an aging U.S. population and a reduction in immigration. “We should get more comfortable seeing numbers below 75,000 and below 50,000’’ new jobs a month, he said. “The likelihood of seeing negative [jobs] numbers is higher,’’ he said.

Economists are also beginning to worry that artificial intelligence is taking jobs that would otherwise have gone to young or entry-level workers. In a report last month, researchers at Stanford University found “substantial declines in employment for early-career workers” — ages 22-25 — in fields most exposed to AI. The unemployment rate for those ages 16 to 24 rose last month to 10.5%, the Labor Department reported Friday, the highest since April 2021.

Job seeker Mamoulides is sure that competition from AI is one of the reasons she’s having trouble finding work.

“I know at my previous company, they were really embracing AI and trying to integrate it as much as they could into people’s workflow,” she said. “They were getting lots of [Microsoft] ‘Copilot’ licenses for people to use. From that experience, I do think companies may be relying on AI more for entry-level roles.”

Some relief may be coming.

The weak August numbers make it all but certain that the Federal Reserve will cut its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting, Sept. 16-17. Under Chair Jerome Powell, the Fed has been reluctant to cut rates until it sees what effect Trump’s import taxes have on inflation. Lower borrowing costs could — eventually, anyway — encourage consumers and businesses to spend and invest.

Vanguard’s Hirt expects the Fed to reduce its benchmark rate — now a range of 4.25% to 4.5% — by a full percentage point over the next year and says it might cut rates at each of its next three meetings.

Trump has repeatedly pressured Powell to lower rates and has sought to fire one Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook denies the allegations, which she contends are a pretext for the president to gain control over the central bank.

Trump blamed Powell again for slowing jobs numbers Friday in a social media post, saying that “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should have lowered rates long ago. As usual, he’s ‘Too Late!’”

The July 4 budget bill also “included a big wallop of front-loaded spending on defense and border security, as well as tax cuts that will quickly flow through to household and business after-tax incomes,” Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank, wrote in a commentary.

But the damage that has already occurred may be difficult to repair.

James Knightley, an economist at ING, noted that the University of Michigan’s consumer surveys show that 62% of Americans expect unemployment to rise over the next year. Only 13% expect it to fall. Only four times in the last 50 years of surveys has the employment outlook been so bleak.

“People see and feel changes in the jobs market before they show up in the official data — they know if their company has a hiring freeze or the odd person here or there is being laid off,” Knightley wrote. “This suggests the real threat of outright falls in employment later this year.”

Wiseman, D’Innocenzio and Lewis write for the Associated Press. AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.

Elijah Allman, son of pop icon Cher and songwriter Gregg Allman, landed in the hospital this weekend after law enforcement responded to a report of a man “acting erratically” in a home in the Mojave Desert.

Deputies with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department on Saturday responded to the residence in the unincorporated community of Landers where Allman, 48, “was being evaluated by emergency medical personnel,” officials said in a statement shared with People. Deputies also “located drugs inside the home” and the musicians’ son was transported to a hospital.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which did not immediately respond on Monday to The Times’ request for comment and additional information, said it is investigating the incident. The statement did not reveal whether drug use led to Allman’s hospitalization but TMZ, which broke the news, reported he overdosed earlier Saturday morning. A source told the outlet Allman is “receiving the best care possible” and “lucky to have survived.”

A representative for Cher did not comment to The Times on Monday.

Marieangela King, Allman’s estranged wife, expressed support for her husband and spoke about his “unwavering commitment to sobriety and his loyalty to those he loves” in a statement to People. She acknowledged that her spouse has “faced personal challenges in the past.”

“Like many, he continues to confront his inner struggles — but it is important to recognize that he does so from a place of strength, not defeat,” she added. “Despite the assumptions that often color how his journey is portrayed, the reality is that Elijah remains grounded, focused and deeply committed to living with integrity and purpose.”

Allman has been open about his struggles with sobriety in the past, telling Entertainment Tonight in a 2014 interview that his drug addiction began before he was even a teenager. “I mean it’s just what you did, it’s just what everyone did,” he told Rob Marciano at the time.

“I [was] just looking to escape all the things in my past and that’s when you turn to those kind of drugs, you know heroin and opiates,” he said in 2014. He also recalled “some close calls and some moments of really feeling at the edge of mortality.”

Details of his alleged drug use also surfaced in December 2023 when his mother filed her bid for conservatorship to take over his finances. The Grammy-winning “Believe” singer alleged at the time that her son was “substantially unable to manage his own financial resources due to severe mental health and substance abuse issues.” Cher ended her conservatorship bid less than a year later, dismissing her petition in September 2024.

King filed a petition to divorce Allman in Los Angeles in April, citing “irreconcilable differences.” The couple, who married in December 2013, was previously headed for divorce when Allman filed a petition in 2021. In January 2024, he filed to dismiss that case without prejudice. Amid their ongoing relationship tensions, King underscored in her weekend statement, “I will always root for him.

“My support is steadfast and comes from a place of deep respect for the person he is and the resilience he continues to show,” King said.