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Jobs report release dates for 2026 and 2027

The US jobs report comes out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time, most months on the first Friday. Here is every date for 2027 and the rest of 2026, taken from the government's own schedule.

Beginner guide · 6-minute read · Updated 2026-11-01

The short answer

The US jobs report comes out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Most months that's the first Friday. Its official name is The Employment Situation, and it comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Each report covers the month before. The report out in early March is about February's jobs.

That's 5:30 a.m. in California and 9:30 a.m. in Halifax. It lands one hour before the stock market opens.

2027 jobs report dates

The January 8 report covers December 2026. Two dates in 2027 are not first Fridays:

• January 8. The first Friday is New Year's Day, when the market is closed.
• October 8. The BLS picked the second Friday that month.

For the other big dates of the year (Fed meetings, inflation, holidays), see the full 2027 economic calendar.

The rest of 2026

A few of these look odd. Each has a reason:

• February 11 (a Wednesday). It was set for February 6. A gap in government funding pushed it back.
• April 3 (Good Friday). The stock market was closed. The report came out anyway, at 8:30. The bond market opened and shut early, at noon.
• July 2 (a Thursday). July 3 was the market holiday for Independence Day, so the report moved up a day.

The table starts in February. The release for December 2025 isn't on our list because I couldn't confirm its date.

Source: bls.gov for 2027 and bls.gov for 2026.

Why "the first Friday" is only a rule of thumb

The BLS doesn't pick a Friday at random. It times the report off a survey week in the middle of the month before. So the date drifts. Most months it lands on the first Friday. Some months it lands on the second.

Holidays move it. So do government shutdowns. The BLS moved dates in both 2025 and 2026. That's why a "next jobs report" page written months ago can be wrong today.

What's inside the report

The report is long, but traders watch three numbers:

1. Jobs added or lost. This is Nonfarm payrolls: how many jobs US employers added last month.
2. The unemployment rate. The share of people who want a job and can't find one.
3. Average hourly pay. How fast wages are rising. Fast wage growth can mean more inflation.

It also fixes the last two months' numbers. Those fixes can move markets as much as the new number. For the full walk-through, see nonfarm payrolls explained.

Why 8:30 a.m. matters if you hold stocks

The report comes out before the stock market opens. Futures, bonds and the dollar react in seconds. Stocks can't trade on the main exchange until 9:30. So when they do open, they can open at a very different price. That jump is called a Gap.

A gap is where a Stop loss lets people down. Here is a worked example (hypothetical, made-up fund and round numbers).

You own 100 shares of the Northwind Index Fund. It closes Thursday at $100. You set a stop at $97, so the most you planned to lose is $300. The jobs number is a big surprise. The fund opens Friday at $95.

Your stop turned into a sell order at the open. The next price was $95, not $97. You lost $500, not $300. The extra $200 is the gap. A stop limits a slow slide. It can't stop a jump.

If you sell options, the same thing works on your strike. A put that was comfortably out of the money on Thursday can open in the money on Friday.

What to do on jobs day

You don't have to trade it. You do have to know it's coming.

1. Mark the date. Use the table above or the countdown.
2. Size for a gap. Ask: "If this opens 5% against me, can I live with it?" If not, the position is too big for the day.
3. Don't open a new trade at 8:29. Wait for the first half hour after the open to settle.
4. Check your expiries. An option that expires that Friday has no time left to recover from a bad open.

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