Michigan ranks 15th in job growth as national employment stalls

Michigan’s labor market saw heavy job turnover and modest growth in 2025, reflecting a national trend in which employment gains largely stalled, even in states that previously led the country in job creation.

Michigan added 200,702 private sector jobs during the first quarter of 2025. But it lost 202,820 jobs, leading to a net loss, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released on Dec. 17.

Nationally, the same report shows private sector employers added 7.45 million jobs in the first quarter of 2025 while eliminating 7.24 million jobs – a net loss of 210,000 positions.

The Michigan figures align with broader employment data showing that job growth slowed significantly nationwide in 2025.

A separate Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Jan. 7, 2026, stated that job growth flatlined nationwide over the past year.

The two leading states, South Carolina and Missouri, each saw job counts increase by 2.0% from November 2024 to November 2025.

The number of jobs in Michigan increased by 0.9% during the same period, putting the state in 15th place nationally.

“In the same period, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. announced that it had made deals to provide taxpayer money to select companies to create 1,913 jobs,” James Hohman, fiscal policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email.

Hohman’s 2024 review of 20 years of recent history found that official efforts to create jobs through offering subsidies had failed. Only one out of every 11 jobs expected from subsidy deals comes into being, Hohman found.

“No one should expect the state’s economic development programs to develop the economy when looking at the size of the state’s actual job turnover,” Hohman told CapCon.

Business Employment Dynamics, a Bureau of Labor Statistics program, tracks gross job gains and losses.