While the American labor market continued to recover from the devastating effects of the the coronavirus pandemic in January, the latest jobs report also revealed that it’s still a long climb back to where things were before the virus outbreak.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total nonfarm employment rose by 49,000 in January, as the unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points to 6.3 percent. “The labor market continued to reflect the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it,” the BLS wrote in its official release, adding that notable job gains in professional and business services and education had been offset by losses in leisure and hospitality, retail trade, health care and in transportation and warehousing.
As the following chart shows, job gains have slowed to a trickle in recent months, with total nonfarm employment still trailing pre-pandemic levels by almost 10 million jobs.
