Economics
Better-Than-Expected U.S. Jobs Data Seen as Last of ‘Easy Gains’
- Payrolls rise of 1.76 million reflects continued reopenings
- With vaccine still far off, unemployment to remain high
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The U.S. labor market’s third straight month of solid improvement from the depths of the pandemic could very well be its last for a while.
Workers returned to low-wage jobs at restaurants and retailers, as major cities -- especially New York -- continued to reopen early in the month. Since then, though, many measures of activity have leveled off and a key relief program has expired with no agreement on a new deal. The July jobs report also showed that millions of Americans who lost their jobs in the early days of the pandemic remain unemployed, with the overall rate still almost triple the pre-crisis level.