Broadcast Workforce Stable While Ad Hiring Rebounds.

Broadcast employment held relatively steady last month according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The government data shows 334,500 people were working in the broadcast sector in February, which is 500 less than a month earlier. On a year-over-year basis, total employment was down 1.8%. The segment includes not only radio and television broadcast companies, but also other content companies like cable TV. BLS doesn’t release radio-specific monthly figures.

In the other media-related sector, BLS data shows employment in publishing followed a similar stable trend to broadcast. Total employment in that sector was 903,900. That was down 800 employees month-to-month. On a year-to-year comparison, the total employment figures were down 0.3%.

The number of people working in advertising and public relations is closely tied to how well media companies can expect to do in the coming months, and the government’s February data offers a bit good news for broadcasters. After the ad sector gave up jobs in recent months, BLS says the total workforce grew last month to 480,200. That was up a half-percentage point month-to-month, although the total was up by 2.4% vs. a year earlier.

The February numbers show the broadcast and advertising sectors were largely in line with the overall U.S. job market. The government says total nonfarm payroll employment edged down by 92,000 in February. The result was the unemployment rate edged up slightly to 4.4%, which was down 0.1% from a month earlier, with 7.6 million Americans looking for work.

Health care employment was one of the few growth sectors last month. Federal government employment was again among the biggest losers, shedding another 11,000 jobs as some federal employees who accepted a deferred resignation offer in 2025 came off federal payrolls. The federal workforce has lost an average of 5,000 jobs per month over the prior 12 months. Since reaching a peak in October 2024, federal government employment is down by 330,000 — or 11% federal workers.

Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 15 cents in February to $37.32. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased 3.8%. And the average workweek for all employees was unchanged at 34.3 hours.

BLS also revised down monthly employment revisions for December by 65,000, and it lowered January growth numbers by 4,000. With these revisions, job growth numbers for the two months were 69,000 lower than previously reported — and rather than seeing jobs grow in December, the U.S. lost jobs during that month.

While the jobs numbers delivered an unexpectedly weak monthly report card, Kory Kantenga, Head of Economics at LinkedIn, says the latest data is largely related to what is happening in a single sector of the job market.

“The sharp slowdown in payroll growth reflects a drop in healthcare employment, which has accounted for nearly all job gains since January 2025,” Kantenga writes in a post. “Outside healthcare, payroll growth remains weak, as it has over the past year.”