More jobs are lost in closing businesses than gained in new businesses. 
The BLS Business Employment Dynamics (BED) report shows another net loss of jobs for 2025-Q3, the most recent release.
- From June 2025 to September 2025, gross job losses from contracting and closing private-sector establishments were 7.6 million, a decrease of 272,000 jobs from the previous quarter.
- Over this period, gross job gains from expanding and opening private-sector establishments were 7.5 million, a decrease of 110,000 jobs from the previous quarter.
BED Net Job Creation
The Business Employment Dynamics (BED) data shows a net loss of 159,000 jobs for 2025 Q3 and a net loss of 321,000 jobs for 2025 Q2.
Negative numbers are not the norm outside of recessions.
Establishment Births and Deaths
- In the third quarter of 2025, there were 323,000 establishment births which accounted for 967,000 jobs.
- Data for establishment deaths are available through the fourth quarter of 2024, when 939,000 jobs were lost at 306,000 establishments.
Closing businesses lag reporting because the BLS does not know whether an employer failed to report or went out of business.
So it’s lag on top of lag in these reports.
Firm Size
- Firms with 1 to 49 employees had a net employment decrease of 138,000.
- Firms with 50 to 249 employees experienced a net employment loss of 75,000.
- Firms with 250 or more employees added 4,000 net jobs.
Trump’s tariffs are destroying small businesses. There’s no doubt about that. But he’s too stubborn and too economically illiterate to admit it.
This looks incredibly stagflationary, but for now, AI is keeping the economy in expansion.
Related Posts
April 30, 2026: AI Provided Nearly All the GDP Growth in the First Quarter
Let’s go over the AI-GDP math to see how I arrive at the numbers.
April 30, 2026: PCE Inflation Is Ripping Higher. Don’t Expect Fed Interest Rate Cuts
Year-over-year PCE inflation jumped to 3.5 percent. The Fed wants 2.0 percent.
May 1, 2026: ISM Employment Contracts 31 Months, Prices Rise 19 months
“The Prices Index has increased 25.6 percentage points to reach its highest level since April 2022 (84.6 percent).”
May 2, 2026: Gasoline Is 59 Cents from Record High, Diesel Only 19 Cents Away
Hello consumers and farmers. Are you tired of winning yet?
And in other news, China has now thrown down the gauntlet on those US sanctions by throwing down their own sanctions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVuGw6Ci0ZU
How many of those small businesses are services? People deciding to mow their own yard or make their own coffee because of inflation. The inflation is global because of worldwide printing….. and not tariffs. Tariffs may have some effect but it is small.
I think Europe, in the near future will be following the U.S. tariff plan just like they are now starting to implement our ICE model.
Otherwise i guess we just let china manufacture everything and control our lives remotely.
https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3352351/two-worlds-collide-regulatory-battlefield-hanging-over-eus-ties-china
Ruter, the public transport authority for greater Oslo, drove new and used electric buses made by Chinese manufacturing conglomerate Yutong into a decommissioned mineshaft inside a mountain. There, cybersecurity tests revealed that the buses could be remotely deactivated and that even from within the mine the Chinese supplier had remote access to the vehicles for software updates and diagnostics.
The experiment helped trigger a chain of events illustrating an increasingly combative legislative landscape that is elevating what the European Union sees as its “systemic rivalry” with China to new levels.
The long bond gone wild. Both 20/30 over 5%, Iran attacking UAE. Jul Brent $113.75, WTI $105.28. Dow down 455.
Oct Brent at $97.54 and climbing. We need more Trump announcements pronto!
Cruel summer…..
You heard it first here folks: The ceasefire is broken with multiple sites in the UAE hit. That lasted longer than I thought.
You have to give taco credit as the economic picture for the US continues in the same direction.
“Negative numbers are not the norm outside of recessions.”
Then we MUST be in a recession.
Mish: how do you expect this to pan out when AI inevitably pops? All indications seem to point to circular financing and dotcom lunacy, but this time it’s propping the entire US up against a monster recession.
Not well, but this isn’t the dotcom bust.
Companies have real money to blow and they are.
They are chasing their own tails and each other in circular deals.
I’d posit that this is going to play out differently because we have much less of every other sector compared to then. I’m close to automotive manufacturing and I can definitely say things are worse now with the tariffs than 26 years ago. My concern is there won’t be anywhere for the American economy to fall back once this worthless venture fails.
The humongous shift from time deposit to demand deposits, flight to liquidity, represents an increase in the demand for money, which is contractionary.
Mish, is there a breakdown by sector (or age) for these losses?
Since so many are in small businesses I am wondering if a lot of it is due to boomer retirement (which is still accelerating) and them simply closing up their shop. The misses father recently retired and closed his small doctors office that was staffed with his wife (also retired at the same time) and another couple of older employees who likely also retired (or very soon will). I imagine a lot of other similar businesses (small accounting firms, small trade business like a family plumbing etc) will do the same once the boomers who own/operate them retire.
Here ya go Tim…
https://project-equity.org/press-releases/2-3-million-small-businesses-nationwide-owned-by-aging-boomers-preparing-to-retire-puts-1-in-6-employees-jobs-at-risk-based-on-a-project-equity-study/
The demographic death spiral suddenly gets real and those with functioning brains know what’s coming, the rest are headed to where clueless people end up.
Keep kicking immigrants out and it all happens faster.
They ALL gotta go….time to get back to a country where there aren’t 3 Home Depot’s, 2 Lowe’s and 4 Walmart’s all within 20 miles of each other…not even going to mention the 14 Starbucks in the same area.
Simpler times ahead…and back to one language.
Gonna be great!
But what about muh stonks?!?!??….yeah, what about’em
Lol, you are never getting back to one language or one anything. What is going to happen is more abandoned strip malls, more languages and more immigrants.
You forget that as the population shrinks means less police, less ICE, less military, etc. The new draft age is now 42, let that sink in.
It’ll be easier than ever to invade.
You really don’t think things thru do you?
Got exit strategy?
Totally expected with Trump Turdonomics policies. But the worst is yet to come.
Do worry, Trump will find a way to make things even worse.™
This whole story reminds me of SnowCrash.