The July 1, 2026 analysis was authored by Goldman's Ronnie Walker and Jessica Rindels. To gauge hiring patterns, the economists turned to Homebase, a payroll company serving small businesses, in order to compare hiring trends in World Cup host cities versus other areas. Host cities include 11 locations spread across the country.
The numbers show that the World Cup is cushioning the slowdown. Host cities saw hiring fall just 1.2% from a year ago. Non-host cities saw a steeper 3.5% decline.
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That gap matches the boost from the tournament, Goldman says. Hospitality hiring rose 9.5% nationwide, a possible World Cup-related boost.
Goldman's analysis indicates that the bulk of the new hires will be in three sectors: hospitality and leisure, business and professional services, and transportation and trade.
The 2026 tournament is the first World Cup hosted by three nations - the United States, Mexico, and Canada - with 11 World Cup hosting cities serving as venues, including Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Dallas. Millions of international visitors are expected to travel to these locations, driving temporary demand for hotel staff, restaurant workers, event security, and transport logistics. Goldman's analysis uses this expected surge in activity to explain why host cities are outperforming non-host cities in hiring trends, even as the broader labor market cools.
The broader U.S. labor market has been cooling in recent months, with May's 172,000 job gains representing a slowdown from earlier in the year. The consensus forecast of 115,000 for June would mark a further deceleration. Against this backdrop, the World Cup's temporary hiring surge could provide a noticeable, if short-lived, boost to the official employment count.
The official June jobs report is scheduled for release on Thursday, July 2, 2026. That is one day after the Goldman analysis came out. Investors will watch the number closely to see if the World Cup shows up in the data.
Goldman also cautions that the first estimate for June has a history of being revised. Goldman also pointed out that in each of the last four years, the initial June jobs figure was later revised downward, and that the first estimate tends to show an upward bias among the three releases.
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