Washington (AFP) – The US economy created only 235,000 new jobs last month, compared to an expected 750,000. The reason appears to be the number of coronavirus cases, which have risen sharply in the past few weeks. Experts attribute this to the rapid spread of the delta variant, the unwillingness to vaccinate many people and the abandonment of other protective measures such as wearing masks. In July, US companies created 1.1 million new jobs.
The US unemployment rate fell to 5.2%, the Labor Department announced Friday. This is 0.2 percentage point lower than in July. This is likely due to the low number of people registered as unemployed.
In February 2020, the unemployment rate in the United States reached its lowest level in 50 years: 3.5%. In April 2020, the rate jumped to 14.7%, the highest level since the global economic crisis in the 1930s. More than 23 million people are unemployed.
Photo: © AFP/Olivier DOULIERY Archive/poster of an American company looking for workers
© Copyright AFP Agence France-Presse GmbH – The contents of these pages marked with the acronym “AFP” are protected by copyright. Messages are only for personal information. Any other use, in particular storage in databases, publication, copying and any form of commercial use as well as transmission to third parties – also in parts or in revised form – without the consent of AFP GmbH is prohibited.