📉 Axios PM: Job reality smackdown

🎉 Happy Friday! Today's newsletter, edited by Alex Fitzpatrick, is 776 words, a 3-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing.

🇺🇸 Bulletin: President Trump today demanded "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" from Iran's regime — then called Axios' Barak Ravid and explained what he meant. Go deeper.

🎂 Alan Greenspan, longtime Fed chair, turns 100 today. Birthday greetings from Jay Powell.

Today's jobs report snaps back to the reality of a labor market at a standstill, with little net job creation, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.

• Even before the potential for fresh turbulence from the Iran war, the labor market was on weak footing due to AI adoption, trade chaos and immigration crackdowns.

📉 By the numbers: The economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, the biggest bust since October.

• The jobless rate ticked up to 4.4%.

👩‍💻 Hiring at the end of 2025 was also much worse than initially reported.

• Employment fell by 17,000 in December, a sharp reversal from the most recent estimate of 48,000 jobs added.
• All told, employers added only 6,000 jobs each month over the last three months — negligible in an economy with 158 million total jobs.

🏥 The February jobs number may have been affected by temporary factors, including a Kaiser Permanente strike that took out 28,000 health care jobs, but is now over.

• That will likely be reversed in the March report. Still, it underscores the peril of ultra-concentrated hiring lately.
• Health care has been the engine of U.S. job growth. If it falters, other sectors may be too weak to pick up the slack.

Case in point: Manufacturing, a politically vital sector that President Trump promised to revive, returned to shedding mode last month.

• Manufacturers cut 12,000 jobs in February, a sign that January's gains — the sector's first since late 2024 — may have been a blip.

📝 Fitch Ratings economist Olu Sonola wrote in a memo: "Just when it looked like the labor market was stabilizing, this report delivers a knock-down blow to that view."

• Go deeper.

Oil and gas prices are heading upward again today, Axios' Ben Geman reports.

• Ships avoiding the Strait of Hormuz near Iran, and military threats to regional infrastructure, are shocking oil and natural gas markets.
• Eurasia Group analysts said in a note: "Oil and [liquefied natural gas] prices will continue climbing until credible measures enable resumed shipment through the strait."

🛢️ Brent crude oil — the global benchmark — topped $90 this afternoon, up about 25% since the Iran war began last Saturday.

• ⛽️ U.S. average regular gas prices are up 32¢ a gallon this week to $3.32, per AAA.
• Gas prices rose 10.8% over the past four days — the largest spike since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Schwab analyst Kevin Gordon says.

🇮🇳 🇷🇺 The Trump administration is trying to temper the shock, including through a 30-day sanctions waiver that lets Indian refiners buy more Russian oil.

• Energy Secretary Chris Wright told "Fox & Friends" this morning that it'll take "weeks, not months" for gas prices to decline.

Go deeper.

Instagram Teen Accounts have built-in protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see, now inspired by 13+ movie ratings.

The impact: Nearly 95% of parents say Teen Accounts are helpful in safeguarding their teens.

Learn more.

1. 🕯️ Thousands of people — including former Presidents Obama, Biden and Clinton — gathered in Chicago this afternoon for services honoring the late Rev. Jesse Jackson. Obama said Jackson was "a man who, when the poor and the dispossessed needed a champion, and the country needed healing, stepped forward again and again and again and said, 'send me.'" Go deeper.
2. 💵 The Trump administration said that it can't immediately issue tariff refunds, casting doubt on when businesses will get the hundreds of billions of dollars owed to them. Go deeper.
3. 📰 Axel Springer, the German parent of Politico and Business Insider, announced a £575 million ($770 million) cash deal to acquire Telegraph Media Group of London, which includes the 170-year-old newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Axios' Sara Fischer reports. Go deeper.
4. 🥇 The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Paralympics opened today, with events including para skiing, sled hockey and wheelchair curling. Team USA athletes ... How to watch.

🏡 The L.A. City Council this week designated the "Brady Bunch house" in the San Fernando Valley as a historic cultural monument.

• Their vote grants landmark protections to the Dilling Avenue house, used for exterior shots in the iconic 1969–1974 sitcom. Go deeper.

A Boeing 737 loaded with some of the country's most precious founding documents is on a multicity exhibition tour marking America's 250th birthday.

• 🛬 The Freedom Plane is landing in Kansas City; Atlanta; L.A.; Houston; Denver; Miami; Dearborn, Michigan; and Seattle between now and mid-August.

Monica Crowley, U.S. chief of protocol, tells CNN: "This initiative is all about bringing our history to life, capturing the national mood of celebration, and sending America's big birthday party from the nation's capital to the very heart of America."

• Full itinerary.

Instagram Teen Accounts default all teens into automatic content settings, now inspired by 13+ movie ratings.

What this means: What teens see will be similar to content in age-appropriate movies. We've also introduced a stricter setting for parents who prefer extra controls.

Learn more.

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