The economic reactivation in the United States as the vaccination process progresses facilitated the creation of 916,000 jobs in March, the highest number since August 2020, after the crisis caused by the pandemic and confirms the gradual recovery of the labor market.
Likewise, the unemployment rate fell to 6% in March, two tenths less than the rate registered in February, according to the report released this Friday by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, in its acronym in English).
“This improvement in the labor market reflects the continued reopening of economic activity that had been slowed down due to the covid-19 pandemic. Job creation was widespread in March, led by the leisure and hospitality sectors, public and private education, and construction,” the report stressed.
The unemployment rate, which went from 3.5% in February to 14.7% of the workforce in April, when the COVID-19 pandemic had the greatest impact, has been decreasing every month since then and in all three The first of the year has approached 6%, which indicates the good health of the labor market in 2021.
US President Joe Biden pointed out in an intervention from the White House shortly after the March data was released that “in the first two months” of his administration more new jobs have been created than in the first of any other administration in the United States history.
However, he acknowledged that “there is still a long way to go” to return to pre-pandemic levels.
RECOVERED 60% OF THE JOBS DESTROYED BY THE PANDEMIC
Of the 22 million jobs lost during the pandemic, 13 million have already been recovered, representing 60%.
“The growth rate in March has been extraordinary for usual levels, but it still wouldn’t be enough to return to normality until May 2022,” explained Jason Furman, an economist at the Peterson Institute think tank.
The United States, the country most affected in the world by the pandemic with more than 550,000 deaths from covid-19, has accelerated vaccination in recent weeks, reaching a daily rate of more than 3 million doses administered per day.
Biden has assured that by May 90% of the population will be vaccinated, and has marked the beginning of July as the beginning of the return to normality.
SCARED ECONOMY IN 2021
According to the projections of the Federal Reserve (Fed), the United States economy will register a growth of 6% in 2021 as a result of the relaunch of activity, the lifting of restrictions and the approval of the third fiscal stimulus package, approved in March, worth 1.9 trillion dollars.
This new rescue includes direct transfers for citizens, strengthening and expanding unemployment benefits, and aid to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Added to this is the monetary arsenal deployed by the Fed, the central bank, which has kept interest rates close to 0% since March 2020 and carries out multimillion-dollar injections of liquidity monthly through debt purchase programs.
This Thursday, in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), Biden presented his public investment plan in infrastructure valued at more than 2 trillion dollars, which will be disbursed over a decade and that includes more than 600,000 million to modernize the aging transportation network and renew the federal fleet with electric vehicles.
The plan also includes a $ 400,000 million item, which will aim to hire workers to care for both the elderly and the disabled.
To pay for it, Biden is proposing a tax hike, raising the corporate tax rate from the current 21% to 28%.
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