Jha Washington: The US unemployment rate dropped to 8.4 per cent in August with the addition of over 1.4 million new jobs, a latest monthly report said on Friday, reflecting that the world’s biggest economy, which was severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, is on its path to recovery. The report, released by the Department of Labour, also said that in August, the unemployment rate declined by 1.8 percentage points to 8.4 per cent, and the number of unemployed persons fell by 2.8 million to 13.6 million.
Both the measures have declined for four consecutive months but are higher than in February, by 4.9 percentage points and 7.8 million, respectively, the Bureau of Labour Statistics said. These improvements in the labour market reflect the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to contain the disease, it said.
In a statement, Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, said the 1.4 million jobs added in August are 2.5 times the number of jobs created in any single month of the entire Obama-Biden administration, driving the unemployment rate down again. In just four months, more than 10.6 million jobs — nearly half of the jobs lost to the pandemic — have already been recovered.
While the work is not finished, President Trump’s policies positioned us to fight through the coronavirus crisis and reopen faster than doomsayers like Biden predicted. Biden says he would shut down the economy again, despite obvious evidence that we can be safe and get back to work at the same time. While Joe Biden continues to root for bad news, the economy maintained its rapid recovery as more and more Americans are returning to work. For the fourth consecutive month, the American economy has added a massive number of jobs in the greatest period of job growth in history, Murtaugh said.
The report also revealed that in August, 24.3 per cent of employed persons teleworked because of the coronavirus pandemic, down from 26.4 per cent in July. In August, 24.2 million people reported that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic, they did not work at all or worked fewer hours at some point in the last four weeks due to the pandemic.
This measure is down from 31.3 million in July. Among those who reported in August that they were unable to work because of the pandemic-related closures or lost business, 11.6 per cent received at least some pay from their employers for the hours not worked.
About 5.2 million people not in the labour force in August were prevented from looking for work due to the pandemic. This is down from 6.5 million in July.
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