Despite the United States being in the middle of battling the coronavirus, the job market is slightly climbing the charts with new jobs, making the levels reach as high as before the pandemic hit.
For the month of October, there were approximately 638,000 job openings. In terms of the unemployment rate, the rate had dropped significantly to 6.9% back in the month of September. Due to the rise in the job market, this provides a bit of hope for the nation and the economy.
The big spike in hiring last month mainly came from big businesses, including hospitality, health care facilities and retail. Even though the numbers show positivity in the recovery of the jobs that were lost due to the global pandemic, many economists are stating that the rates are not speaking to the real levels of those who are out of jobs.
There are approximately 10 million Americans who are currently still out of a job, after being a part of the group that count on the 22 million jobs that were lost, back when the pandemic started, according to MarketWatch.
For major technology companies among other well-known markets, October was the only month that showed a strong increase in hiring. Approximately 208,000 jobs were filled, such as bars and restaurants opening up 192,000 jobs for hire, while other businesses like hotels hired 34,000 workers.
When it comes to the retail industry, hiring increased by 104,000. Additionally, the majority of retail companies restored a large number of their jobs that were lost when most stores closed in March. Nevertheless, with physical stores shut down during the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, this provided a big boost for the online portion of the retail companies.
In manufacturing, employment rose by 38,000 for October. Recovered manufacturing jobs only managed to go slightly over 1.35 million jobs that were lost back in March and April. In relation, construction jobs have increased by 84,000 jobs.
On the flip side, jobs within the government sector fell by 268,000 in October. Both state and local governments removed job openings as well. There are still many schools around the nation that have not fully reopened in-person and because of this, there is not so much of demand for bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other staff members, according to MarketWatch.
Many states are actively working with their local government officials to slowly, but safely bring back the life that was once normal to them before the pandemic, which means adapting to new rules and regulations that would adjust workers and customers to this new way of life.
Many companies are looking to rehire old staffers and hire new ones to get their businesses booming again. The economy does continue to grow even though infections and death rates continue to soar, breaking records as it goes along. During this fall season, many companies are seeing their businesses increase dramatically, while back in the summer, companies have not seen an increase in job hiring.
While many were out of jobs, the spending rate rose to 1.4% in the month of September, even though this percentage has not risen since the summertime. Expenditures for goods rose slight to 2%, while many spenders have increased their spending to 1.1% on services. On job-posting data trackers, the separation between goods and services are made evident, Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed.com, said.
“Where job postings are closer to last year’s trends are those related to goods consumption. Jobs involving getting goods to retailers and wholesalers—those are actually growing at a fair clip above their trend,” said Bunker. He went on to add that service industries involve medium or large crowd interaction have recovered little since the earlier in the year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
