White-collar payrolls have now contracted for 31 straight months. Here's what the data shows

The headline unemployment rate masks a contraction in professional employment that is without precedent outside of a recession

Amazon $AMZN headquarters in Seattle. Amazon said earlier this year that it's cutting 16,000 corporate jobs in an effort to remove layers of bureaucracy and "increase ownership," becoming the latest company to target managers for layoffs in recent years. (M. Scott Brauer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The unemployment rate was at 4.3% in March. Payrolls grew by 178,000 that month. By those top-line measures, the labor market looks fine. But it's not fine — at least not for the workers who populate office buildings rather than construction sites or hospital floors. White-collar payrolls have now contracted for 31 consecutive months, a statistic first reported by Aaron Terrazas, a former chief economist at Glassdoor. As Terrazas told Quartz for an article published last month, "We have not seen this long of a contraction in white-collar jobs outside of a recession ever before."

Here's what the data shows.

Where the white-collar job losses are concentrated

The Bureau of Labor Statistics organizes employment by industry "supersector," and the ones most associated with white-collar work are professional and business services, financial activities, and information (which includes technology firms). All three are in retreat.

Financial activities employment fell by 15,000 in March 2026 alone, driven by a loss of 16,000 in finance and insurance. The sector is now down 77,000 jobs since May 2025. The information sector continued to........

© Quartz