How did employment by sector change under Trump's second term compared with his first term?
Executive summary
Available sources do not provide a single, comprehensive dataset that breaks down employment by sector across “Trump’s first term” (2017–2020) versus “his second term” (2025–present) in a directly comparable table; reporting and analyses instead offer piecemeal figures on overall job creation, sectoral highlights (manufacturing, federal workforce, health care) and major revisions to BLS numbers [1] [2] [3] [4]. Key published findings: Trump’s first term saw large pandemic-related losses (net loss ~2.7 million jobs cited for 2020) and a net manufacturing loss of 188,000 jobs by January 2021 [1] [2]; reporting from 2025 describes job growth early in his second term broadly similar to the pace in his first three years [1] while other organizations report sharp slowdowns and sectoral weakness later in 2025 [5].
1. Pandemic distortion and why direct “term-to-term” comparisons are misleading
Comparing sector employment across terms is complicated because Trump’s first term ended amid the Covid shock that destroyed millions of jobs in 2020; Reuters notes the pandemic left the Republican with a net loss of 2.7 million jobs in his prior term, meaning averages across 2017–2021 are skewed by an extreme outlier year [1]. Analysts and journalists caution that raw year-to-year totals therefore reflect both policy and a once-in-a-century public‑health collapse rather than steady policy effects [1].
2. Manufacturing: modest gains, important losses and a stalled recovery
Manufacturing employment is one of the clearest sector narratives in the public record: despite rhetoric about “bringing back” factories, the combined losses in 2019–2020 left manufacturing employment down by 188,000 jobs at the end of Trump’s first term [2]. Reuters and FactCheck reporting show that both Trump and his successors targeted manufacturing but saw growth decelerate or stall as terms progressed [1] [2]. Available sources do not provide a full manufacturing job tally for the entirety of a second Trump term; Reuters says the pace of job creation in the last year (early 2025) was broadly in line with Trump’s first three pre‑pandemic years, implying no dramatic sector reversal yet [1].
3. Private‑sector job counts, revisions and political claims
Public debate over who “created” jobs has been muddied by revisions to BLS numbers. FactCheck and PolitiFact document large benchmark revisions in 2024 (hundreds of thousands in some months) and note smaller subsequent adjustments for September–October 2024; those revisions have been invoked by political actors to question official counts [4]. A media critique of Trump’s “real numbers” on private‑sector growth collates annual private‑sector job totals that fall sharply in 2020 and then rebound (2017–2025 series), underscoring how the private total oscillated around the pandemic [6]. That long list is not a sectoral breakdown by industry, however [6].
4. Federal/public workforce: increases amid rhetoric of cuts
Despite an administration posture favoring a smaller federal government, Partnership for Public Service analysis found the federal civilian workforce rose on average 0.9% per year between December 2016 and December 2020 — an increase relative to the prior administration’s second term [3] [7]. That pattern shows policy intent does not always translate into immediate headcount declines and it complicates simple “private vs. public job” narratives pushed politically [3].
5. Healthcare and services: major drivers, now showing cooling signs
Groundwork Collaborative and other analysts report that health care and services drove much recent job growth and that health‑care job openings fell in mid‑2025 to levels not seen since 2020 — a red flag because health care accounted for a large share of new jobs in prior years [5]. This signals sectoral cooling in the second term that contrasts with the relatively stronger health‑care contribution to growth in the post‑pandemic recovery period [5].
6. What journalists and policymakers should watch next
Reliable, sector‑by‑sector comparisons require BLS CES time series and benchmarking tables; the official BLS series is available but political actors often emphasize partial revisions or headline monthly totals [8] [4]. Reporters should track manufacturing, health care, construction and federal payrolls specifically, and account for benchmark revisions that can change political narratives [2] [4] [8].
Limitations and conflicts in sources
Available sources do not supply a single table that compares every sector’s employment totals across Trump’s full first term versus his second term. Reuters frames early 2025 job‑creation pace as broadly similar to Trump's pre‑pandemic years [1]; other outlets highlight severe slowdowns, lower job openings and sectoral weakness in 2025 [5]. Both perspectives are supported in the record; the divergence largely reflects timing, benchmark revisions and which months each outlet emphasizes [1] [5] [4].