'Holy Leisure And Hospitality Batman!' Economists React To February Jobs Report On Twitter
Total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 379,000 jobs in February, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
The unemployment rate fell slightly to 6.2%.
Most of February's job gains came from the leisure and hospitality sector, which added 355,000 jobs. A little more than 80% of those jobs were in food services and drinking places.
Retail trade added 41,000 jobs in February and has now added 2 million jobs since May.
The construction industry saw 61,000 job losses, and employment in the industry is now down 308,000 jobs year-over-year.
Here's how economists and others reacted to the jobs report on Twitter:
The US economy added back 379,000 jobs in February.
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) March 5, 2021
Most — 286,000 — were in restaurants
Other gains came in:
Hotels: +36,000
Entertainment: +33,000
Temp help: +53,000
Retail: +41,000
Important note: Restaurant/hospitality jobs are still down 3.5 million (-20%) from last year
Me, hearing we gained 379,000 jobs: the labor market is BACK!
— Andrew Van Dam (@andrewvandam) March 5, 2021
Me, adding 379,000 jobs to the chart: oh.https://t.co/Ngz6N0t2sq pic.twitter.com/hzrLmMqOJP
Holy Leisure and Hospitality Batman!
— Constance L Hunter (@ConstanceHunter) March 5, 2021
Added 355k jobs, partially reversing the losses in December and January. We expect March and April to show substantially higher gains as more of the economy opens and the weather warms.
#Jobs #COVID19 @KPMGUS_News
Basically the people who suffered a temporary job losses are coming back to work at a rapid clip, the permanent job losses are unchanged. pic.twitter.com/LTHgOjAXH0
— Neil Irwin (@Neil_Irwin) March 5, 2021
NOTABLE: The US has 10 million unemployed. That number should be at least 14 million.@BLS_gov says 4.2 million "were prevented from looking for work due to the pandemic." (Think: moms watching kids)
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) March 5, 2021
These people are NOT officially counted as unemployed, but they should be.
Brutal numbers on state and local government employment, especially education. -39k state gov jobs (32k of those education), -44k local gov (37k of those education).
— Neil Irwin (@Neil_Irwin) March 5, 2021
I have to assume this drop in construction employment was due to extreme weather and will reverse in March https://t.co/yIEH1Sfjwq
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) March 5, 2021
The Black unemployment rose in February for all the wrong reasons, the share employed fell. Black women (over 20) rose from 8.5 to 8.9%. The unemployment rate for Black men (over 20) 10.2% is higher than the high school dropout unemployment rate of 10.1% @AFLCIO pic.twitter.com/3UBIpQY35y
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) March 5, 2021
Remote work holding steady. Nearly 1/4 still working at home because of the pandemic. Down from last spring, but essentially unchanged for months. pic.twitter.com/x0Wwl47Zju
— Jed Kolko (@JedKolko) March 5, 2021
The truth is that this is as good as we need it to be for now. It's unrealistic to see much recovery until the virus is gone, and if everyone was back at work, that would just lead to more virus spread. A significant chunk of the economy is still on ice.
— Adam Ozimek (@ModeledBehavior) March 5, 2021
— The pace of the jobs recovery is "fast" relative to the lethargic 2010s recovery
— Alan Cole (@AlanMCole) March 5, 2021
— It's still not nearly fast enough for what we need
— But it's about to get way faster in the near future
In sum,
— Aaron Sojourner (@aaronsojourner) March 5, 2021
— a year into pandemic recession, we remain in a very deep hole, with more jobs lost than the Great Recession's worst
— some good news but trivial relative to challenge
— use every productive resource to crush virus
— get off contractionary fiscal policy course
