Montana’s unemployment rate held at 3.6 percent in February, state labor officials reported, leaving the state’s jobless figure nearly a full percentage point below the national rate, which climbed to 4.4 percent over the same period — its highest level in recent months.
The flat headline number masked some softening beneath the surface. Both total employment and the overall labor force contracted in February, with the twin declines effectively canceling each other out and leaving the rate unchanged. Payroll employment fell by 500 positions, with losses concentrated in leisure and hospitality businesses partly cushioned by hiring gains in the construction sector.
Despite February’s dip, Montana’s labor force has expanded by nearly 3,000 workers over the past twelve months, a gain that officials have cited as evidence of underlying momentum in the state’s workforce. Still, a report released by the Montana Department of Labor and Industry in August 2025 identified more than 100,000 working-age residents who are neither employed nor looking for work — a substantial reservoir of untapped labor that complicates the state’s relatively tidy unemployment figures.
Gov. Greg Gianforte has made narrowing that gap a stated priority, framing workforce participation as a pipeline issue as much as an economic one. His administration’s 406 JOBS Initiative is designed to remove barriers to employment and guide Montanans back into the labor market, with a particular focus on sectors facing acute shortages: health care, construction, hospitality and recreation, advanced manufacturing and computing, education and child care, and financial and professional services.
By: Montana Newsroom staff
