Private businesses in the US cut 32K jobs in September 2025, following a revised loss of 3K in August, defying forecasts of a 50K gain. It marks the steepest job decline since March 2023 and the first time since 2020 that the private sector has cut jobs for two consecutive months. The decline partly reflects a recalibration in data analysis, which reduced September’s job count by 43K compared with pre-benchmark figures. However, the trend was unchanged: job creation continued to lose momentum across most sectors. The service producing sector lost 28K jobs, mostly leisure/hospitality (-19K), professional/business services (-13K), financial activities (-9K), and trade/transportation/utilities (-7K), offsetting gains in education/health services (33K). The good-producing sector lost 3K jobs due to construction (-5K) and manufacturing (-2K). Meanwhile, pay growth for job-stayers was little changed at 4.5%. Pay gains for job-changers slowed to 6.6% from 7.1%.