Despite widespread labor shortages, US hiring accelerated in June as employers added 850,000 jobs amid a downturn. COVID-19 cases, reopening the economy and Increase vaccinations.
The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate, which was calculated from a different household survey, rose from 5.8% to 5.9%.
Economists estimated that 720,000 jobs were added last month, according to a Bloomberg survey.
So far, the United States has regained 15.6 million jobs, or 70%, of the 22.4 million jobs lost last spring, leaving the country 6.8 million jobs below the pre-pandemic level.
Leisure and hospitality, the industry hardest hit by the pandemic, led gains again, adding 343,000 jobs, including 194,000 in restaurants and bars, as more states ended capacity limits.
Local, state, and private education added 269,000 jobs, but these developments represented an anomaly in workers’ seasonal adjustments. School staff usually fall off the payroll in June and July. But as fewer education workers are hired due to the pandemic, the number of dropouts has decreased and that translates into significant gains after seasonal adjustments.
Professional and business services added 72,000 jobs. Retail added 67,000 as more stores reopened. Besieged by supply chain bottlenecks, manufacturing added 15,000.
Several forces are joining forces to support the economy and the labor market, leading analysts to expect record job gains of between 7 and 8 million jobs this year.
Coronavirus cases this week have fallen to a seven-day average of about 12,000, the lowest since March 2020. 47 percent of the US population has been fully vaccinated. Most countries have lifted all restrictions related to the epidemic.
Also, Congress has passed $3.2 trillion in government stimulus spending Since late last year, including more checks for families.
Consumer demand, in turn, is rising after more than a year of government shutdown and self-imposed restraint. Restaurant seats on OpenTable, an online reservation service, were just 10% below 2019 levels in one week in mid-June, compared with a 17% deficit in a similar week in May,And the strongest display since the early days of the pandemic, according to Goldman Sachs.
Earlier this spring, job gains were solid by historical standards, but they were well below the 1 million advances per month many forecasters had been expecting.
Problem: companies still Struggling to find enough workersSurveys show that many economists partially blame the federal bonus on unemployment benefits that may discourage some people from returning to work or taking on new jobs. Others care for children who are still learning from a distance or fear contracting the coronavirus.
But Goldman Sachs suspects that some of these obstacles are fading.
He said about half of the countries They will cut unemployment benefits before the September deadline, and many started doing so in June. Goldman noted that continuing unemployment claims fell more quickly in those states last month. However, Homebase, which provides employee scheduling software, said employment actually grew 1.7% slower in those states.
See who cut an extra $300 a week:Which states end federal unemployment benefits early?
Meanwhile, many high school and college students joined the workforce in June, partly easing the labor crunch in low-wage industries like restaurants and retail, Goldman said. Oxford Economics says employers have boosted wages to attract reluctant job candidates.
The strong employment gains for June “despite continued employment pressures are likely to be the start of a series of excellent reports that will underpin the strongest US economic performance since 1951,” says economist Lydia Bosor of Oxford Economics. Oxford expects to add 8 million jobs this year, including at least two months with advances of at least one million.
There are still hurdles that keep many Americans on the sidelines. The proportion of adults working or looking for jobs — which includes the labor force — stabilized at a historically low level of 61.6% last month, a sign of “ongoing labor market pressures,” says Rubella Farooqi, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics.
The number of Americans who have been temporarily laid off is largely unchanged at 1.8 million. The number is down from 18 million in the early days of the pandemic now that many restaurants and other businesses are bringing back registered workers. About 19% of unemployed workers said they were on temporary layoffs, down slightly from the previous month. But there is less scope for gains through re-employment than there was early in the crisis.
And the ranks of Americans who were permanently laid off were roughly stable at 4 million.
Other hiring measures improved last month. According to Homebase, the number of employees and the number of hours they work has grown about 4% to the highest levels since the pandemic began.
Even live theater, perhaps the industry hardest hit by the pandemic, is returning and re-employing again.
In March 2020, Chad Brown, 40, was laid off from his job locking up musicians, comedians, and other businesses in Denver while his wife Kaitlyn no longer works as a massage therapist.
Brown got a part-time job at a company that prepares meal kits while Kaitlyn was receiving unemployment benefits, but their income wasn’t enough to make ends meet in Denver. So a year ago, the couple and their 8-month-old son moved to live with Kaitlyn’s parents in Montana. Chad is a waiter once a week while Kaitlin works as a restaurant server.
In March, Chad noticed a few theater-related vacancies and began applying for positions across the country. In mid-May, he served as a restaurant, bar, and special events manager at a theater preparing to show plays and musicals in Phoenix. It started this week. Productions like these fulfill Chad’s career goals better than his previous theatrical job, and he hopes to rise to the position of Artistic Director in Arizona or another theater.
“It was very exciting,” Chad says of the job offer. But, he adds, “I still think it will take a long time” for the sponsors to return to the stage.
Easy layoffs:US jobless claims drop to 364,000, a new pandemic low
Hurry up and wait.A new study reveals which US city has the worst traffic, and Los Angeles isn’t anymore
0 Comments