Initial figures show Kansas City region lost jobs in 2025

Mar 12, 2026
| Posted in
Economy & Housing
View of Kansas City skyline with KC Scout statue in right foreground

Between December 2024 and December 2025, the Kansas City region economy lost 3,600 jobs — falling to 1,150,100 from 1,153,700.

While a loss of 3,300 federal workers might appear as the obvious reason, an analysis by MARC’s Office of Economic Research shows the real story is more complicated than that.

Job losses in key industries

As is the case nationally, a narrow segment of industries exhibited strong growth last year, principally health care and construction, growing by 7,600 and 5,600 jobs, respectively. While the vast majority of industries showed little change, a few showed significant losses. In addition to the federal government, December-to-December job losses in other industries included motor vehicle manufacturing (3,100), administrative and support services (2,700), and computer systems design (2,100), the latter being where Oracle/Cerner is classified.

What especially hurts the region’s economy is that most of these industries are ones in which Kansas City specializes and exports goods or services to the rest of the country and world. Because these jobs bring outside dollars to the regional economy to be spent and re-spent, they have an outsized economic impact. They are the industries that, in the past, have powered the regional economy. However, in 2025, these economic growth engines faltered.

“That said, it would be unwise to read too much into one year’s data. Some of these negative trends may be transitory,” said Frank Lenk, director of the MARC Office of Economic Research. “For example, GM’s employment at Fairfax will likely rebound as they ramp up production of the Chevrolet Bolt in 2026. After a year of steep cuts, federal employment has probably stabilized. The same may be true for Oracle.”

"Moreover, in April, the region’s employment data will be revised back to 2024, as part of an annual benchmarking exercise that tabulates the complete count of jobs reported by area firms rather than a relying on a modeled estimate. This revision could change the magnitude — and even the direction — of some currently published trends.”

Frank Lenk, Director of the Office of Economic Research

Regardless of how the final numbers shake out, Lenk encouraged the region to help existing industries successfully adapt to a rapidly changing business, policy and technological environment, while at the same time, develop new industries with high levels of growth potential that are resilient to and/or take advantage of such changes. Efforts such as the KC BioHub and Critical Materials Crossroads are initial steps in this direction.

Additional employment and workforce information can be found on MARC’s monthly workforce indicators page.

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