US President Joe Biden at a press conference on the employment situation in the United States on July 2, 2021 at the White House in Washington (AFP / MANDEL NGAN)
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The US economy created more jobs than expected in June, “a historic step forward,” Joe Biden said, although the job market is far from recovered from the pandemic and unemployment is still hitting workers hard. black and Hispanic communities.
“Our economy is making historic progress, coming out of the worst crisis in a hundred years”, which is “a direct consequence” of the White House’s revival policy, assured the Democratic president at a press conference.
“It is clear that we are on the right track,” he added, welcoming the optimistic new growth forecasts for 2021 released Thursday by the Congressional Budget Staff and the IMF.
Blazing fast economic growth “does not happen by chance or accident”, he said. “It is (the fruit of) our economic plan. Our vaccine strategy. Our American rescue plan,” he stressed.
Earlier, he tweeted that three million jobs had been created since he took office.
For the month of June alone, 850,000 jobs were created against 680,000 expected by a consensus of analysts, the labor department announced on Friday.
It’s better than in May (559,000) but there is still 6.8 million jobs missing compared to February 2020, just before the start of the pandemic in the United States which plunged the world’s largest economy into recession as the rest of the globe.
In addition, the unemployment rate rose to 5.9% (+0.1 points) last month with the number of people unemployed unchanged (9.5 million).
And, blacks and Hispanics are still the hardest hit with an unemployment rate of 9.2% and 7.4% respectively against 5.2% for whites and 5.8% for Asians.
“These data are significantly down from their April 2020 highs but remain well above their pre-coronavirus pandemic levels,” the ministry noted in a statement, recalling that in February 2020, the Unemployment rate was 3.5% – its lowest level in 50 years – and 5.7 million people were out of work.
“There is a shortage of 6.8 million jobs (…). 5 million services are still missing, so this is where the focus will be in the future,” said economist Joseph Brusuelas of RSM. on Twitter.
The ministry’s figures only give a fragmentary view since the data is only collected for the first half of the month.
A banner for hiring, August 4, 2021 in Arlington, Virginia (AFP / Olivier DOULIERY)
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Unsurprisingly, “notable” job gains have taken place in the leisure and hospitality sectors which have suffered the most from COVID-related restrictions.
An effective vaccination campaign has made it possible to reopen at full speed many restaurants, amusement parks, cinemas, etc. And, with Americans whose savings swelled during the pandemic, with millions of households receiving government assistance, demand for the services has soared.
– Myriad of obstacles to employment –
The public and private education sector has also recruited strongly with the prospect of the reopening of establishments at the next school year after having remained closed for more than a year for some.
Economists expected a strong jobs report, with some predicting as much as a million new jobs.
But the job market is still faced with a myriad of difficulties: the mismatch between jobs and the profiles of the unemployed, the problem of childcare or the fear of Covid which is still present.
A poster “We are hiring” on the window of a store in December 2020 in Arlington, Virginia (AFP / Olivier DOULIERY)
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Some unemployed people have other professional aspirations and are not ready to accept any offer while some employees quit because they do not want to return to the office and are looking for a telecommuting job.
Faced with the sharp increase in activity, especially in restaurants, employers are increasing the number of offers accompanied by substantial bonuses to motivate candidates.
Republicans blame very generous unemployment benefits since the start of the pandemic, which allows some low-skilled unemployed to earn more than when they were in low-paid jobs.
Republican states have thus started to anticipate the withdrawal of these allowances which should take place in early September, but their real impact will only appear in the data for July.
“We are far from the coveted million mark, but this report paints a picture of a constantly recovering job market,” commented Lydia Boussour of Oxford Economics.
According to her, June marks “the beginning of a series of extraordinary reports which will carry the strongest American economic performance since 1951”.
On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund said US growth will reach 7% this year, the fastest pace since 1984.
Dt-aue / eb
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