The leisure and hospitality industry added the most jobs in February with 355,000 new positions as some restrictions to stop the spread of Covid-19 were rolled back. The sector is still recovering from a rough winter, adding back positions that were lost rather than creating new jobs.
The unemployment rate — which only counts people who are actively seeking jobs and not those who have dropped out of the workforce entirely — inched down to 6.2% from 6.3% in January. It was forecast to stay flat.
“Today’s report does show green shoots of recovery,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor. “But I also think the report is a little bit weaker than the headline numbers show.”
So Friday’s good news is only part of the recovery story.
America is still down 9.5 million jobs from February last year. While that number is finally going down, millions of workers have to rely on government help to make ends meet. Despite the good news in Friday’s report, “there’s still a lot of wood to chop,” said BMO senior economist Sal Guatieri.
And the labor force participation rate was flat at 61.4% in February. It hasn’t been this low since the 1970s.
The unequal recovery
Economists and politicians are calling the recovery “K-shaped” because it isn’t working for everyone. While many white-collar workers and people invested in the stock market have seen their wealth increase through the pandemic, lower-wage earners have struggled to pay for basic necessities.
A look at how the different demographic groups…
Read the full article at rss.cnn.com
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