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The US labor-market recovery accelerated in February as daily COVID-19 cases swiftly declined and the pace of vaccinations improved. …
Subscriber Account active since The US labor-market recovery accelerated in February as daily COVID-19 cases swiftly declined and the pace of vaccinations improved. Businesses added 379,000 payrolls last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected a gain of 200,000 payrolls. The increase follows a revised 166,000-payroll jump in January. The labor market has now grown for two straight months after contracting in December as virus cases surged. The US unemployment rate fell to 6.2% from 6.3%, according to the government report. Economists expected the rate to drop to stay steady at 6.3%. The U-6 unemployment rate — which includes workers marginally attached to the labor force and those employed part-time for economic reasons — remained at 11.1%. The labor force participation was also unchanged at 61.4%. A falling participation rate can drag the benchmark U-3 unemployment rate lower, but such declines signal deep scarring in the labor market. Jobless claims data and private-payrolls reports offer some detail as to how the labor market fared through February, but the BLS release paints the clearest picture yet as to how the pandemic has affected workers and the unemployed. Roughly 13.3 million Americans cited the pandemic as the main reason their employer stopped operations. That’s down from 14.8 million people in January. The number of people saying COVID-19 was the primary reason they didn’t seek employment dropped to 4.
