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Sonderling Calls the Labor Day Jobs Report Historic in Fox Remarks on Trump's Second Term

September 9, 2026 · USDepartmentofLabor · 0:02:53

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

In Labor Day remarks to Fox carried by the Labor Department, Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling called the latest jobs report historic, saying the economy had now passed one million private-sector jobs in President Trump’s second term and that the numbers came in at roughly three times what economists expected, as he stated the figures. He framed the report against 250 years of the American worker, from an agrarian nation through the industrial revolution to what he called the age of AI.

Sonderling broke the numbers down as he presented them: 100,000 construction jobs tied to manufacturing plants, followed by 58,000 new manufacturing jobs, with a manufacturing index up eight consecutive months, and nearly 700,000 workers entering the labor force, reflecting continued labor-force participation, as he stated the figures. He pointed to auto manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and steel production as sectors coming back, and to demand for welders, machinists, pipefitters and HVAC technicians around data-center construction.

On artificial intelligence, Sonderling said the Labor Department under President Trump is working to remove workers’ fear of AI and to make sure American workers have the skills to compete globally, arguing that the technology is being built in America and should be stored and used in America, as he stated the department’s approach.

Why it matters

The Fox remarks are the short-form version of the administration’s Labor Day message — the same jobs figures Sonderling laid out at length on C-SPAN, compressed into a manufacturing-and-trades framing for a holiday audience.

Sources: USDepartmentofLabor, “Secretary Keith Sondering remarks on labor day for FOX”, 2026-09-09 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-09-09). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.