WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. labor market erupted in February. He raised hopes that the deployment of viral vaccines, the distribution of federal aid and the growing willingness and ability of consumers to go out and spend will boost the economy as the climate warms.
Employers added 379,000 jobs, the government said Friday, most since October and far exceeding economists’ forecasts. The unemployment rate, which fell to 6.2%, has now fallen almost every month since it reached 14.8% in April last year after the pandemic erupted in the United States and caused impressive job losses.
Stopped for much of last year, the economy has been gradually reopening as more people are vaccinated and less infected. The number of new confirmed cases of coronavirus has dropped to an average below 60,000 daily, from about 250,000 in early January, according to Johns Hopkins University.
A package of government aid late last year also handed out $ 600 checks to most adults, in addition to an even bigger financial bailout last spring. President Joe Biden is looking to give new impetus to families with a $ 1.9 trillion aid package that will add benefits to the unemployed and send $ 1,400 to most families.
“Improving health conditions, expanding the distribution of vaccines and generous fiscal stimulus will form a powerful cocktail that will raise real (economic) growth to 7% in 2021,” reversing the 3.5% drop from last year, Gregory Daco and Lydia Boussour of Oxford Economics said in a research note. They expect the economy to add an average of about 580,000 jobs a month this year.
Here are five takeaways from the February job report:
RETURNED RESTAURANTS
No area of the economy has endured more devastation from the pandemic recession than the leisure and hospitality sector. Now, as more bars, restaurants and hotels reopen, this industry has regained many of its lost jobs.
In February, leisure and hospitality added 355,000 jobs, more than 90% of the total profit of the economy. Added jobs included only 286,000 in restaurants and bars.
Many of these jobs return when California and Texas (the two most populous states) completely reopen their economies, along with other states. Still, last year’s job and hospitality losses were so profound that the sector continues to drop 3.5 million jobs from its pre-pandemic level. Even if the torrid pace of February could be maintained, the leisure and hospitality industry would take another ten months to regain its pre-pandemic work level. And that doesn’t even include the additional jobs that this sector would have added over the last year under normal circumstances.
A SPRING SPRING
February job growth was about double what economists expected. And the scenery was also better seen in the rearview mirror. The government’s revised estimates added 38,000 net jobs in December and January combined.
Most economists also set aside a dose of bad news in Friday’s report: a loss of 61,000 jobs in construction that was likely a temporary consequence of the freezing winter weather and power outages in Texas and elsewhere. And the fall of 86,000 government jobs in February reflected, in part, technical issues related to accounting for the closure and reopening of schools in the face of the pandemic.
A LOST YEAR
A year ago, the pandemic still had to hit the United States hard. As a result, last month’s data illustrates the damage the virus caused to the job market in 12 months. Comparisons with the days before the pandemic are ugly.
Despite last month’s impressive gain, the economy continues to fall by approximately 9.5 million jobs compared to February 2020. And the proportion of adults working or looking for work (the so-called participation rate of the labor) was 61.4% in February, falling sharply from 63.3% a year earlier. This proportion is now close to what it was in the mid-1970s, before a huge influx of women entered the American workforce. In addition, the unemployment rate of 6.2% in February, although significantly lower than last spring, remains high compared to 3.5% the previous year.
RACIAL INEQUALITY
February employment growth did nothing to reduce 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, 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 of people who said they were unemployed increased by 129,000.
By contrast, unemployment fell slightly last month in whites (from 5.7% to 5.6%, a much lower rate than in minorities) and in Hispanics (from 8.6% to 8.5 %).
GONE FOR WELL
Employers continued to call workers who had been razed after the virus occurred last year. But it seems that many jobs have definitely disappeared and those who held these positions could remain unemployed indefinitely.
The number of Americans on temporary dismissal fell by 517,000 last month to 2.2 million. At the same time, the ranks of the permanently unemployed were stuck at the high 3.5 million, only 6,000 compared to January. Permanent losers have outnumbered the temporarily unemployed each month since September.