• Some housing markets might be hit harder than others under Trump tariffs, according to the NAR.
• More trade-reliant states will see bigger disruptions to their local job markets and home prices.
• Here are the 10 most vulnerable housing markets.

While economists agree that Trump's tariffs will raise prices across the board, the trade war will have different impacts on local economies — all the way down to how their housing markets behave.

That's because certain areas of the US rely on industries more exposed to global trade than others. With countries around the world placing retaliatory tariffs on the US — effectively reducing foreign demand for American products — areas producing those goods suffer. States that are more trade-reliant experience larger job market fluctuations than states with more domestic industries, which impacts homebuying activity.

"When we talk about trade, most people think that it's something that happens at the national level, but in reality, it plays out very differently from state to state," Nadia Evangelou, a senior economist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR), told Business Insider. "By looking at where trade is happening and how much each state relies on it, we can better understand how sensitive certain states might be to global disruptions like tariffs."

Take Louisiana, for example, which the NAR deems to be the state with the highest trade reliance, with 26.5% of its state GDP coming from exports. Evangelou considers states with an export-to-GDP ratio above 7% as highly trade-reliant.

Energy and chemicals are Louisiana's top industries, and China, Mexico, and the Netherlands each receive over $5 billion in Louisiana products. Antagonistic trade relations with China and Mexico would presumably have a negative impact on the state's economy and job market, potentially discouraging homebuyers from moving to the state and hurting the incomes of prospective homebuyers already there.

Wondering if you live in a state highly reliant on trade? Listed below in descending order are the 10 states with the highest level of exports as a percentage of GDP.

1. Louisiana

Exports as a % of GDP: 26.5%

2. Texas

Exports as a % of GDP: 16.8%

3. Kentucky

Exports as a % of GDP: 16.3%

4. Indiana

Exports as a % of GDP: 11.4%

5. South Carolina

Exports as a % of GDP: 10.9%

6. Oregon

Exports as a % of GDP: 10.3%

7. Michigan

Exports as a % of GDP: 8.7%

8. Mississippi

Exports as a % of GDP: 8.7%

9. New Mexico

Exports as a % of GDP: 8.5%

10. Alaska

Exports as a % of GDP: 8.5%

• BI looked at jobs that paid above the national median and were expected to increase employment from 2023 to 2033.
• A few high-paying healthcare and tech jobs are projected to have robust job growth.
• Most of the jobs that made the top 20 on our list had a median pay of over $100,000 a year.

Developers, nurses, accountants, and lawyers could be good occupations if you're looking for work with strong expected demand and typically high pay.

Business Insider analyzed high-paying jobs with potentially strong job growth based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. We took the geometric mean of jobs that paid above the median annual wage in May 2024, $49,500, and jobs that are projected to grow from 2023 to 2033. We excluded catchall job titles because we wanted to focus on occupations that were specific. The higher the geometric mean, the higher the occupation ranked on our list.

Several tech jobs, including data scientists, and a few healthcare jobs, including registered nurses, made the top 20. Most of the top gigs had median annual wages of six figures, and the top eight are projected to increase by more than 100,000 workers.

Here are the jobs that made the top 20.

20. Human resources specialists

Projected job increase: 74,200

Median wage: $72,910

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

19. Personal financial advisors

Projected job increase: 55,000

Median wage: $102,140

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

18. Postsecondary health specialties teachers

Projected job increase: 53,300

Median wage: $105,620

Education typically needed: Doctoral or professional degree

17. Market research analysts and marketing specialists

Projected job increase: 74,900

Median wage: $76,950

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

16. Physician assistants

Projected job increase: 43,700

Median wage: $133,260

Education typically needed: Master's degree

15. Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers

Projected job increase: 102,000

Median wage: $57,440

Education typically needed: Postsecondary nondegree award

14. Computer systems analysts

Projected job increase: 56,500

Median wage: $103,790

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

13. Lawyers

Projected job increase: 44,200

Median wage: $151,160

Education typically needed: Doctoral or professional degree

12. Project management specialists

Projected job increase: 69,900

Median wage: $100,750

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

11. Information security analysts

Projected job increase: 59,100

Median wage: $124,910

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

10. Accountants and auditors

Projected job increase: 91,400

Median wage: $81,680

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

9. Data scientists

Projected job increase: 73,100

Median wage: $112,590

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

8. Management analysts

Projected job increase: 107,900

Median wage: $101,190

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

7. Nurse practitioners

Projected job increase: 135,500

Median wage: $129,210

Education typically needed: Master's degree

6. Computer and information systems managers

Projected job increase: 106,900

Median wage: $171,200

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

5. Registered nurses

Projected job increase: 197,200

Median wage: $93,600

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

4. Medical and health services managers

Projected job increase: 160,600

Median wage: $117,960

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

3. General and operations managers

Projected job increase: 210,400

Median wage: $102,950

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

2. Financial managers

Projected job increase: 138,300

Median wage: $161,700

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

1. Software developers

Projected job increase: 303,700

Median wage: $133,080

Education typically needed: Bachelor's degree

• The US added 151,000 jobs in February, fewer than expected.
• Unemployment unexpectedly ticked up to 4.1% from 4%.
• The new data will be useful for the Federal Reserve to decide whether to keep interest rates steady.

The job market was just a touch cooler in February, as new job creation clocked in at 151,000, below expectations, and unemployment unexpectedly increased to 4.1%.

The job growth forecast was 159,000, and unemployment was expected to be at the same rate as January's 4%. Unemployment has been between 4% and 4.2% since May.

Economic data like unemployment is useful for the Federal Reserve to determine what to do next with interest rates. The Federal Open Market Committee is meeting later this month, following their most recent decision to hold rates steady in January. Since then, two jobs reports and other data releases, such as reports about consumer confidence and prices, have given further insight into the economy's performance.

"Labor market conditions have cooled from their formerly overheated state and remain solid," Fed chair Jerome Powell said in the semiannual testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in February.

Revisions to job growth from earlier reports were minor. January's job creation was revised from 143,000 to 125,000. December's job gain was revised from 307,000 to 323,000.

Labor force participation, which includes people working or actively seeking work, dropped to 62.4% in February from 62.6% in January. The employment-population ratio decreased to 59.9% from 60.1%.

Wage growth was fairly steady last month. Average hourly earnings increased 4% from a year prior, from $34.54 in February 2024 to $35.93 this past February, similar to January's year-over-year growth of 3.9%.

Based on traders' expectations, CME FedWatch showed a 95% chance the Fed decides in its meeting on March 18 and 19 to do another interest-rate hold, an increase from the 91% chance before the new jobs report.

The jobs report gives people insight into which sectors have had particularly strong growth and where demand is lacking. Federal government employment fell by 10,000. While many federal agencies cut jobs in February, most of those cuts will show up in next month's report because of the timing of data collection.

Gregory Daco, EY's chief economist, told Business Insider that the terminations of federal workers "will undoubtedly impact the March payrolls print, but we don't know by how much." That report will be published on the first Friday in April.

While economists have described the job market as strong recently and said the US hasn't entered a recession, Americans are worried about the economy.

"While headline job market measures remain strong, economic anxiety is on the rise among workers as uncertainty about inflation and job security abounds," Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, told Business Insider before the new jobs report was published. "The trajectory of the labor market remains highly uncertain for the rest of 2025, which is leaving workers uneasy and the picture for the overall economy murky."

Uncertainty around a potential trade war, including retaliatory tariffs, could also affect the US economy. President Donald Trump imposed new tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China earlier this week, although many of those were delayed until April 2 as of Thursday afternoon. The threat of tariffs could affect business planning and demand for workers.

"Steep tariff increases could cause adjustments in business decisions with knock-on effects on hiring and wages as business leaders navigate higher input costs and retaliatory measures," Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY, said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

What makes a successful business successful? Every management consultant and startup founder and financial analyst can tell you, and they'll all tell you something different. Service leadership! Culture of innovation! Diverse workforce, sound business fundamentals, the quality of the snacks in the break room — who knows?

Now, in the biggest undertaking of its kind, a bunch of economists have compiled a comprehensive database of the origins and fates of 50 million American companies. Which ones, they wanted to know, became the largest employers in their industries? Which ones succeeded?

The team's leader, John Haltiwanger, is an economist at the University of Maryland who studies "dynamism." That means he seeks to understand changes over time — why some things surge while other things flame out. He and his team looked at the lifespan of American companies founded from 1981 to 2022. They examined an impressive range of factors: owner demographics, management structure, startup financing, profitability, even the aspirations of the founders. It's nothing less than a complete accounting of what turns a business into a behemoth — "the best database in town," as Haltiwanger puts it.

So, O great and powerful database, what makes the numbers go up and to the right? What makes a company successful?

The answer — you will be shocked to hear — is money.

The strongest correlation between business success and the factors Haltiwanger analyzed is how much financing a company is able to raise before it launches. Starting with $1 million boosts the probability of success by a whopping 25 percentage points. It's like the old Steve Martin joke: Here's how to become a millionaire: First, get a million dollars.

But Haltiwanger found that it also matters where the money comes from. If you self-finance with credit cards, your chances of success actually decrease by 2 points. If you get a loan from a bank, your chances improve by 9 points — but that's been harder and harder to do over the past couple of decades. So the best bet is if you're backed by venture capital: VC investment increases your chance of success by 5 points.

Just as Silicon Valley is always boasting, venture-backed startups really have been the most economically dynamic and productive companies in America. They have the most innovation, the most patents, the biggest R&D budgets. And they have often grown to have the most employees — the metric that Haltiwanger's team used to indicate success.

And therein lies a problem: Almost no one gets venture capital. Of the 1.5 million companies that launch every year, only a few thousand are blessed with VC investment. And the best way to get venture capital, Haltiwanger found, is to be a young, white man.

Now, Haltiwanger isn't the first to discover venture capital's built-in bias. As I've written, VCs are mostly white and mostly male, and they tend to give money to people they know and like, who turn out to also be mostly white and male. Last year, four out of every five venture deals went to an all-male founder team.

But Haltiwanger's study confirms the pattern. Women and nonwhite owners, he found, are less likely to have outside investors — and young founders are more likely to have them. The secret to succeeding in business, the data shows, essentially boils down to: Be a tech bro who gets money from other tech bros.

"There's so much that has to go right for you to be successful," says Florian Ederer, an economist at Boston University who studies startups. "That's always going to privilege people with better networks and better initial starting conditions."

I know! Not great. The data confirms the lived experience of millions of entrepreneurs: The richer you start off, the richer you're likely to get.

But Haltiwanger hopes to use his database to answer a question even deeper than why some companies succeed. That is, why more and more companies don't. Haltiwanger's data shows that the legendary energy of Silicon Valley startups — the origin story of a couple of geniuses back in the 1980s building something in a garage that metastasized into an Apple or a Microsoft or a Google — well, that just isn't happening much anymore. The VC money is still there; the dynamism ain't.

Young, fast companies used to be major sources of employment. In 1981, 15% of working Americans were employed at companies four years old or younger. In 2022, Haltiwanger's team found, it was down to only 9%. And those companies aren't growing as fast as they used to. In 1999, the most dynamic companies outstripped the median rate of growth by 30%. By 2012, they were expanding at pretty much the same rate as other companies.

If the tech sector were as dynamic as it was back in the 1990s, when a cohort of startups grew into Big Tech, it would be sending a constant stream of new challengers onto the field. But that hasn't happened. "Have we seen a remarkable cohort like that in a while?" Haltiwanger says. "The answer is no — and we don't know why." Figuring that out, he adds, will take some more number crunching. But he has some theories.

Theory No. 1: Maybe people are starting different kinds of small businesses nowadays — not high-tech firms, but things like restaurants and pool cleaner services and yoga studios. Those businesses are more likely than tech firms to be owned by women and people of color. From 2002 to 2021, Haltiwanger found, the share of young companies run by women rose from 10% to 18%, while those run by people of color jumped from 10% to 27%. But those owners almost never get venture funding, and they're more likely to self-finance with credit cards. So they're less likely to get big, the way tech companies do.

Theory No. 2: Now that a handful of companies like Google and Meta dominate the tech landscape, maybe the kind of people who might otherwise have been hard-charging founders are instead getting high-paying, low-stress gigs in Big Tech. After all, the older, slower-growing companies are where the jobs are. Small businesses got less dynamic, in other words, because a few big companies now employ all the aspiring dynamos.

Theory No. 3: Big Tech companies aren't just employing all the talent — they're also buying up all the most promising startups. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, innovative startups were more likely to go public than get purchased; by 2001, the reverse was true. In 2019, there were only 100 IPOs — compared with 900 acquisitions. Most of the startups were bought by the half-dozen Big Tech companies you'd expect. The newbies didn't get big. They got eaten.

The question Haltiwanger is asking — why young companies aren't growing as fast as they used to — is an important one. Before 2000, when businesses were able to get bigger, America's aggregate productivity growth was a bit more than 2%. Since then, it's more like 1%. Less dynamism acts as a brake on the economy.

Now, it's possible that all those little startups swallowed by the bigger companies are still creating intellectual property and jobs and new products, goosing the economy in ways the numbers have missed. "The evidence is not definitive yet. That's something we want to go investigate," Haltiwanger says. "But if innovation was proceeding in the same way as before — startups were contributing as much as they did before, just in a different way — then why is productivity growth so low? Something has changed."

Which brings us to Theory No. 4. Maybe, Haltiwanger thinks, the lull in business growth is a good thing. Maybe, just maybe, it's the calm before the innovative storm.

The conventional story, as told by Silicon Valley, is that tech startups got big thanks to the bold, risk-taking vision of the venture capitalists backing them. Haltiwanger thinks it's more complicated than that. For one thing, startup-driven productivity and tech innovation happened long before the invention of modern venture capital. And for another, periods of innovation are usually preceded by a noticeable lag in growth. Go back and look at industries that boomed in the past century — chemicals, cars, robotics — and you see that there's a period of dormancy before the new tech gets implemented at scale. Startups quietly work out the kinks in their crazy ideas, bursting forth like cicadas when the tech is ready.

If that's true, Haltiwanger theorizes, maybe the current slump in business growth is a signal of a boom to come. And maybe this time around, the new tech that's about to explode on the scene is artificial intelligence.

"We are clearly seeing a surge in startups in the last few years," Haltiwanger says. "We see in the data that it is closely tied to AI. The really hard question is: Is this a new platform, a pathbreaking change in the way we do business and the way we work and how we live? Or is it not going to have the same kick as IT?" That's what Haltiwanger is looking to answer with his monster database. The productivity slowdown of the past 10 years might just be the shakedown period before an explosion of nifty new AI stuff, and we'll experience another period of dynamism.

Of course, explosions also cause a lot of damage. Cheaper and lighter AI systems from China like DeepSeek could nullify the capital-intensive machinations of wannabe incumbents like OpenAI. Or AI could eliminate millions of jobs, sparking all sorts of economic upheaval. Or the most innovative AI startups could get consumed by the Microsofts and Googles before they're able to grow into tech giants of their own. The economy might get more dynamic with the rise of AI. But if the new technology moves fast and breaks things, as so many of its predecessors have, will that still count as success?

Adam Rogers is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics revises employment estimates annually with new data.
• This year's revisions could show much lower job growth in 2024 than previously reported.
• It's part of the BLS making employment estimates more accurate.

Friday's job numbers may not be what you expect.

The report is likely to show slower job growth from last year due to a regular update to the government's data — likely among the biggest payroll adjustments in years. But, if the numbers come as a surprise, they shouldn't raise alarm bells.

TL;DR: In the January jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revises the previous year's jobs figures with more complete numbers. This year, revisions are expected to show a double whammy of fewer jobs than previously measured and a larger overall population due to updates in Census Bureau numbers. It could all look like a weaker 2024 job market than previously measured.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics undertakes its benchmark revisions each year in the January employment report. The government recalibrates its basic estimates of job growth over the previous few years based on more complete data reported from businesses. This year's revisions are expected to show smaller job gains in 2024 than were previously reported.

The BLS has already provided an idea of how its new calibration will impact payroll data. A report released by the BLS in August showed that there were around 800,000 fewer jobs across the US economy in March 2024 than previously reported, a larger-than-usual decline relative to the earlier figure.

The headline monthly job growth numbers are based on a monthly survey of business establishments across the US. Any such survey measure represents an approximation of the underlying reality. The annual revisions recalibrate those surveys to more detailed but less timely measures of the full workforce based on administrative data like unemployment insurance records.

It's a bit like searching around for something in a dark room, versus turning on a light. While the initial jobs report gives the best and most timely estimate for employment across the world's biggest economy based on a relatively small sample of businesses, the revisions reflect additional and more complete information that takes a longer time to gather.

While these revisions happen every year, they've recently been relatively small. The below chart shows BLS payroll growth revisions for 2022 as reported in February 2023 and for 2023 as reported in February 2024. The revisions showed most months had larger job gains than reported earlier.

The household survey, which makes up the other half of the monthly jobs report, is also set to receive a major update.

That survey — which gathers information on Americans' socioeconomic health and provides the headline unemployment rate — will also be adjusted based on the Census Bureau's latest population estimates.

Updated Census estimates will likely result in a dramatic apparent uptick in population and employment after the Census Bureau improved how it measures immigration to the US, leading to a larger-than-usual adjustment to the underlying count of how many people live in the country. An apparent increase in employment between December and January would have more to do with those changes in the way the Census calculates population, not any real spike in the workforce. This also makes it difficult to compare household survey data accurately over time.

The likely upward jump in employment from the household survey and downward revision to payroll figures from the business survey could actually bring the two more in line with each other. For much of 2024, the business-derived employment figures suggested a rosier view of the labor market than those from the survey of workers. Combining the revisions together, we're likely to get a more coherent picture of a cooling but still decent job market.

Still, any substantial jumps in job numbers are likely a result of normal, regularly scheduled data recalibrations instead of unexpected economic conditions. Over time, recalibrations allow the Census and BLS to more accurately represent changes in America's workforce.

• The US economy added 256,000 jobs in December, more than the forecast of 164,000.
• Unemployment was expected to hold steady at 4.2% but fell to 4.1%.
• Economists expect 2025 to be a tough labor market for job searchers.

The US labor market ended 2024 on a high note, adding 256,000 jobs in December, above the forecast of 164,000.

Unemployment unexpectedly dropped from 4.2% in November to 4.1% in December. The consensus expectation was that the rate would hold steady.

"We are very proud of our ability to leave with such a strong labor market," Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su told BI. "People have come into the labor market and are looking for jobs — and they're finding them."

Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said there were some concerns in the job market at the start of 2024, but the data indicated signs of equilibrium in the second half.

"In the first half of 2024, we saw unemployment start rising, and it was a pretty good cause for concern," Stahle said. "But then in the back half of the year, we've seen that the unemployment rate has really stabilized."

Labor force participation remained at 62.5% in December. The employment-population ratio increased from 59.8% in November to 60% in December.

Wage growth cooled slightly. Average hourly earnings increased to $35.69 in December, a 3.9% increase from a year earlier. Earnings rose by 4.0% in October and November.

Many sectors saw job growth, especially in healthcare. However, manufacturing, mining and logging, and utilities lost jobs in December.

The new jobs report likely won't derail the Federal Reserve's widely expected pause in its interest-rate easing campaign at its coming meeting after three rate cuts in a row.

CME FedWatch, which shows what traders think will happen to interest rates based on market activity, indicated after the jobs report a 97% chance that rates wouldn't be changed in the first scheduled Federal Open Market Committee meeting of 2025 on January 28 and 29, up from around 93% before the jobs report. There are eight scheduled FOMC meetings in 2025, but the Committee's members signaled in December that the Fed plans only two cuts this year.

In a press conference after the December meeting — where the Fed cut rates by 25 basis points — Fed chair Jerome Powell said that "the labor market is now looser than pre-pandemic" and is gradually still cooling down. He added further cooling isn't needed to reach the Fed's 2% inflation target.

"We're starting to see evidence that the Fed's 100 basis points of cuts are translating into real improvements, improvements in the real economy," Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, said. "While the labor market often lags behind quite substantially, it seems like perhaps the labor market rebound is starting to take hold."

Economists predict the job market in 2025 will be challenging for job searchers, and employers might be cautious in their hiring plans during the start of the year.

"While business sentiment has picked up somewhat since the election, there is still a lot of uncertainty about future policy changes that will likely make businesses hesitant to ramp up hiring, particularly in the first half of 2025," Dante DeAntonio, a labor economist with Moody's Analytics, said in a written statement in 2024.

The new data could provide a little more optimism. Stahle said even if the labor market is cooler than in recent years, "we're really going into the year with a decent amount of momentum."

• The US added 227,000 jobs in November, greater than the expected gain of 202,000.
• Unemployment ticked up as expected from 4.1% to 4.2%.
• The job market's strength in October was clouded due to hurricanes and strikes impacting data collection.

The US added 227,000 jobs in November, more than the consensus expectation of 202,000.

Unemployment increased as expected, from 4.1% in October to 4.2% in November. The rate has been at least 4% since May. While that's low compared to historical averages, the overall labor market has cooled due to a hiring slowdown.

The new jobs report gives the Federal Reserve better information about the state of the labor market after October's report was hampered by the effects of hurricanes and strikes. Friday's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed October's preliminary gain was revised up — from 12,000 jobs to 36,000. September's growth was also revised upward, from 223,000 to 255,000.

"Some of the story in November is post-hurricane bounce back," Ernie Tedeschi, the director of economics at The Budget Lab at Yale, wrote on X.

Tedeschi said the revisions for October and September increased the three-month moving average job growth to 173,000 a month. That's in line with this year's trend, suggesting that the weak October report was indeed a hurricane- and strike-fueled outlier.

Slightly fewer people were working or looking for work in November. Labor force participation dropped from 62.6% in October to 62.5%.

Wage growth remained steady, with average hourly earnings increasing 4% year-over-year in November, matching October's rate.

The Fed's two most recent interest-rate decisions were both cuts, a 50-basis-point cut in September and a 25-basis-point cut in November. Americans will know if there will be one more rate cut this year on December 18.

The CME FedWatch tool, which shows what traders think Fed rate decisions will be, showed a roughly 90% chance of a 25-basis-point cut in December after the BLS release, up from around 70% before the report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.