WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. labor market erupted in February. This has given rise to hopes that the roll-out of viral vaccines, the proliferation of federal aid and the growing willingness and ability of consumers to go out and spending will boost the economy as the weather warms up.
According to the government, employers have added 379,000 jobs, the most since October and far exceeding economists’ forecasts. The unemployment rate, which has fallen to 6.2%, has now fallen almost every month since it peaked at 14.8% in April last year after the pandemic broke out in the United States and caused breathtaking job losses.
As a result of much of last year, the economy gradually reopened as more people were vaccinated and less infected. According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of confirmed new coronavirus cases has dropped to an average of less than 60,000 a day from nearly 250,000 in early January.
A state aid package at the end of last year also delivered $ 600 checks to most adults, who received an even greater economic rescue last year. President Joe Biden wants to give households another boost with a $ 1.9 billion aid package that will add benefits for the unemployed and send $ 1,400 to most families.
“The improvement of health conditions, the expansion of the distribution of vaccines and generous fiscal stimulus will form a powerful cocktail that will increase real (economic) growth in 2021 to 7%,” the decline of last year by 3.5 % reversed, said Gregory Daco and Lydia Boussour of Oxford Economics in a research comment. They expect the economy to add an average of about 580,000 jobs a month this year.
Here are five take-away from the February work report:
HERBOIN RESTAURANT
No area of the economy has experienced more devastation from the pandemic recession than the recreation and hospitality sector. As more pubs, restaurants and hotels reopen to full capacity, this industry has recovered much of its lost work.
In February, leisure and hospitality added 355,000 jobs – more than 90% of total economic gains. The additional jobs included 286,000 at restaurants and bars alone.
Many of the jobs are returning because California and Texas – the two most populous states – are reopening their economies, as well as some other states, more fully. Yet the job losses in leisure and hospitality last year were so deep that the sector is still 3.5 million jobs lower than its pre-pandemic level. Even if the turbulent pace of February were maintained, it would still take ten months before the leisure and hospitality industry regained its jobs before the pandemic. And that does not even include the additional jobs that this sector would have added under normal circumstances over the past year.
AN EARLY SPRING
Job growth in February was about twice the number expected by economists. And the landscape also looked better in the rearview mirror. The government’s revised estimates collectively added a net 38,000 posts for December and January.
Most economists also picked up one dose of bad news in Friday’s report: a loss of 61,000 construction jobs, likely a temporary result of icy winter weather and power outages in Texas and elsewhere. And the abolition of 86,000 government jobs in February partly reflects technical issues related to the settlement of school closures and reopening in the face of the pandemic.
A LOST YEAR
A year ago, the pandemic had yet to hit the United States hard. Consequently, the data from last month illustrate how much damage the virus has done to the labor market in the 12 months. The comparisons to the days before the pandemic are ugly.
Despite the impressive gains last month, the economy is still less than 9.5 million jobs from February 2020. And the percentage of adults working or looking for work – the so-called labor force participation – was 61.4% in February, sharply lower. of 63.3% a year earlier. This relationship is now close to where it was in the mid – 1970s, before a large number of women entered the American workforce. What is more, the unemployment rate of 6.2% in February, although significantly lower than last year, is still high compared to 3.5% a year earlier.
RACE INEQUALITY
The growth in jobs in February did nothing to reduce the chronic disparities between white Americans and minorities that reflect broader economic inequalities.
The unemployment rate for Black Americans rose last month for the first time since April, rising from 9.2% in January to 9.9% in February. The number of African Americans who said they were employed fell by 164,000. And the number who said they were unemployed rose by 129,000.
In contrast, unemployment fell slightly last month for whites (from 5.7% to 5.6%, a rate much lower than for minorities) and for the Spanish (from 8.6% to 8.5%).
WAY FOR GOOD
Employers continued to recall workers they had after the virus struck last year. But it seems that many positions are gone forever, and those who hold these positions may remain indefinitely.
The number of Americans temporarily fired dropped from 517,000 to 2.2 million last month. At the same time, the ranks of permanent unemployed held on to a high 3.5 million, just 6,000 less than in January. The permanent losers have been losing a number of inferior unemployed every month since September.