Fitch: Large-scale U.S. government layoffs had little impact on non-farm payrolls in February

Any negative impact of tariffs and policy uncertainty on economic activity will not show up in the statistics "for quite some time", Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch, said in a report on February jobs data. Job growth was slower than expected last month and the unemployment rate rose to 4.1 percent. The report mentions that the federal government shed 10,000 jobs, but that may not include much of the U.S. government's Department of Efficiency layoffs. "The decline in federal payrolls in February had little impact on overall payrolls," Coulton said.