Jobs are coming back, but it’s still a long road for some

Companies are hiring and unemployment is falling across most advanced economies on hopes that vaccines will eventually contain the coronavirus. But not every job is coming back.

The pandemic has pushed out older employees and is deepening inequality as lower income workers feel the brunt of the crisis. Economists warn that there’s still a way to go before global employment is back to where it was before the pandemic.

Read more: 20 companies hiring new graduates

A resurgent U.S. job market is creating more opportunities at a faster clip than many economists and employers expected. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 916,000 in March, blowing away economists’ median estimate of a 660,000-job gain. But there are gaps. There are still nearly 2 million fewer U.S. women in the labor force than before COVID. Black women in particular are falling behind other groups in job gains.

Read more: Women push for workplace equality

The takeaway:
“The beginning of a rapid recovery in the U.S., and furlough schemes keeping workers attached to jobs in Europe, mean the labor market landscape is not as bleak as it could be,” said Tom Orlik, Chief Economist of Bloomberg Economics. “Still, with the pandemic accelerating the ‘Amazon-effect’ shift from small, labor intensive firms to their bigger, tech-savvy rivals, the path back to full employment will be arduous.”