The ranks of the employed grew by 1.8 million, a drop from the pace of the previous two months, as renewed business closings hampered the recovery.
The American economy slowed in July as the pace of hiring eased from the robust rate of the previous two months, a victim of waning momentum and the resurgence of the coronavirus in many parts of the country. Employers added 1.8 million jobs, well below the 4.8 million jump in payrolls in June, the Labor Department reported, after virus-related restrictions caused some businesses to close for a second time. The unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent. Hours after the report underscored the slowing recovery, talks between administration officials and congressional Democrats on how to pump more aid into the economy were on the verge of collapse.White House advisers said they would recommend that President Trump bypass Congress and act on his own — though his power to do so was unclear. Prominent among the unresolved issues were a revival of the government’s $600-a-week supplement to unemployment aid, a lifeline for millions of jobless workers until it expired at the end of last month, and a possible extension of an eviction moratorium covering many of the nation’s tenants. Even with July’s gains, fewer than half of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April have been restored. And economists warn that the rest of the lost ground will be a challenge to regain. “The easy hiring that was done in May and June has been exhausted,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U. S. economics at Bank of America. “With many companies not running at full capacity, it becomes harder to get that incremental worker back in.” Over all, the job market reflects the crosswinds buffeting the economy less than 100 days before the presidential election. Retailers continue to file for bankruptcy, while airlines and hotels operate at a small fraction of capacity. Some companies are calling back laid-off employees, even as other employers continue to shed workers. The longer the crisis goes on, the greater the toll for businesses, especially smaller ones. “We’re going to start to see a lot of small businesses fall by the wayside, a lot of people who are unemployed become chronically unemployed,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard University economist who has written extensively on financial and economic crises. “We’re in very, very dangerous territory.” And underscoring the prevalence of what economists term “churn” in the labor market, some jobless Americans have secured work only to find themselves out of a job for a second time. After coronavirus-related lockdowns forced dining establishments in New York to close in March, Hannah Lane,24, was laid off as a server in a popular Gramercy Park restaurant where she made about $60,000 a year. She applied for unemployment benefits, but had to wait two months for the payments to begin.
