The U.S. unemployment rate edged down to 10.2% in July even as a wave of new coronavirus cases forced most states to pause or reverse their reopenings, causing a slight pullback in hiring.
The Labor Department said in its Friday report that employers added 1.8 million jobs in July — a far slower pace than the 4.8 million created in June, which was the highest recorded. Economists surveyed by Refinitiv expected the report to show that unemployment dropped to 10.5% and the economy added 1.6 million jobs.
Estimates varied widely amid escalating fears that a flare-up in COVID-19 cases across the country and a fresh round of business closures would derail the job market's early recovery from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
"While these numbers are a bit better than forecast, there still isn’t much to be upbeat about from this jobs report," said Steve Rick, chief economist at CUNA Mutual Group. "Re-openings have been rolling backwards, weekly jobless claims are continuing to pile up and we’re still operating from a huge deficit compared to the beginning of the year."
The virus-induced crisis sent the economy plunging by a record-shattering 32.9% annual rate in the April-June quarter as the outbreak brought American life to a grinding halt.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/july-jobs-report-coronavirus-pandemic-2020
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