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August 2022 jobs report:

Job growth unexpectedly picks up in August as the workforce rises by 315,000

Nonfarm payrolls rose solidly in August amid an otherwise slowing economy, while the unemployment rate ticked higher as more workers re-entered the workforce, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.

The economy added 315,000 jobs this month, just below the Dow Jones estimate of 318,000 and well below July’s 526,000 and the lowest monthly gain since April 2021.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, two-tenths of a percentage point higher than expected, mainly due to a rise in the labor force participation rate to 62.4%, the highest level for the year. A broader measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those who have part-time jobs for economic reasons, rose to 7% from 6.7%.

Wages continued to rise, albeit slightly less than expected. Average hourly wages rose 0.3% for the month and 5.2% year-on-year, both 0.1 percentage point below estimates.

Professional and business services led the payroll increases at 68,000, followed by healthcare at 48,000 and retail at 44,000. Leisure and hospitality, a leading sector in the pandemic-era job recovery, rose just 31,000 this month after averaging 90,000 for the previous seven months of 2022. The unemployment rate for the sector rose to 6.1%, the highest since February

Manufacturing was up 22k, financial activities were up 17k and wholesale trade was up 15k.

Markets reacted positively to the numbers, with major equity indices posting strong gains and government bond yields falling.

Four experts react to the strong job report from August

“There’s something for everyone in this report,” said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. “This report supports the Fed’s ability to stage a soft landing. Markets like it.”

The jobs numbers present a dilemma for a Federal Reserve trying to control inflation.

Inflation is moving at almost its fastest pace in over 40 years as a combination of supply and demand imbalances, massive stimulus from the Fed and Congress and the war in Ukraine have pushed up the cost of living.

However, the labor market has remained strong even as other aspects of the economy have weakened. Residential construction, in particular, is likely to be in a recession.

“This is a unique time where we still have a relatively tight labor market, where there is still job growth, but companies have started to announce hiring freezes, some companies have announced layoffs,” said Liz Ann Sonders, Chief Investment Strategist at Karl Schwab. “This could very likely be a recession where you don’t see the kind of carnage in the job market that you see in most recessions.”

These pay rises came amid rising inflation and concerns about a slowing economy, which reported negative GDP numbers for the first two quarters of the year, widely seen as a telltale sign of a recession.

The Fed has tackled the inflation problem with a series of rate hikes totaling 2.25 percentage points that are expected to continue into next year. In recent days, central bank leaders have warned that they have no intention of reversing monetary tightening and expect interest rates to remain high “for some time” even if they stop raising rates.

Futures markets withdrew expectations of a third straight rate hike by 0.75 percentage points at the September meeting. The probability of this move was 62% at 10am ET, up from 75% on Thursday.

A key channel through which the Fed looks for policy action is through the labor market. Adding to the robust hiring rate, job openings are outstripping available labor by almost 2 to 1, putting wages under pressure and creating a feedback loop that has pushed up prices not just on gas and food, but also on housing and a host of other expenses drives.

There were some weaknesses in the August numbers.

Full-time jobs fell by 242,000 while part-time jobs rose by 413,000, according to the household survey, which the BLS uses to calculate the overall unemployment rate.

The job report is “not strong enough to nudge them into more aggressive rate hikes and not weak enough to slow them down,” Arone said. “I don’t think today’s jobs report will change anything about the Fed’s path.”

August payrolls are generally more volatile than other months. In 2021, the original estimate of 235,000 was finally revised down to 483,000. Over the past decade, the average revision for August has been 82,700 higher.

The BLS cut the number of payslips from 398,000 to 293,000 in June and from 528,000 to 526,000 in July, a total net decrease of 107,000 from previous estimates.

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Jobs report August 2021 shocker: Solely 235,000 new jobs

Jobs report August 2021 shocker: Only 235,000 new jobs

Job creation in August was a huge disappointment as the economy only added 235,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

Economists polled by Dow Jones had sought 720,000 new hires.

The unemployment rate fell from 5.4% to 5.2%, in line with estimates.

The August total – the worst since January – is linked to heightened fears of the pandemic and the impact that rising Covid cases could have on a largely robust recovery. The weak report could tarnish the Federal Reserve’s policy as it weighs whether to withdraw some of the massive stimulus it has added since the outbreak in early 2020.

“The recovery in the job market slowed this month with a dramatic showdown in all industries,” said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor. “Ultimately, the wave of the Delta variant is a hard reminder that the pandemic is still in the driver’s seat and controlling our economic future.”

Leisure and hospitality jobs, which were the main driver of the overall gains at 350,000 per month for the past six months, stalled in August as the industry’s unemployment rate rose to 9.1%.

Instead, professional and business services resulted in 74,000 new jobs. Other winners included transportation and warehousing (53,000), private education (40,000), and manufacturing and other services, each increasing by 37,000.

The retail sector lost 29,000, with the bulk of it coming from food and beverage stores which saw a 23,000 decline.

“The weaker employment activity is likely both a demand and a supply story – companies have stopped hiring in the face of weaker demand and uncertainty about the future, while workers have withdrawn for health reasons,” said the Bank of America economist. Joseph Song, in a message to customers.

According to the report, the US is seeing around 150,000 new Covid cases daily, raising concerns that the recovery could stall until the latter part of the year.

“Delta is the story in this report,” said Marvin Loh, global macro strategist for State Street. “It’s going to be a bumpy rebound in the job market and one that is pushing back against a more optimistic narrative.”

During the month, the number of those who said they could not work due to a pandemic rose by about 400,000, bringing the total to 5.6 million.

“Today’s job report reflects a sharp decline in employment growth, likely due to the increasing impact of the delta variant of COVID-19 on the US economy, although August is also a notoriously difficult month due to the holidays, to be precise investigate, ”said Tony Bedikian. Head of Global Markets at Citizens.

Still, the news wasn’t all bad for Jobs.

There have been significant upward revisions over the past two months, with the grand total now standing at 1.053 million in July, up from the original estimate of 943,000, while June was raised from 938,000 to 962,000. In the two months, the revisions added 134,000 to the initial counts.

Wages also continued to accelerate, increasing by 4.3% year-on-year and 0.6% on a monthly basis. Estimates had been 4% and 0.3%, respectively.

An alternative measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and part-time workers for economic reasons, fell sharply, falling from 9.6% in July to 8.9% in August.

The employment rate remained unchanged at 61.7% and was thus still well below the 63.3% in February 2020, the month before the pandemic was declared.

Employment also remained well below pre-Covid levels, with 5.6 million fewer employees and the total workforce still 2.9 million fewer.

Another key metric from the Fed, the employment-to-population measure, was 58.5%, a tenth of a percentage point more than in July, but still well below the pre-pandemic 61.1%. The measurement looks at the total number of employed persons compared to the population of working age.

August numbers have been volatile in recent years and are often revised significantly. You come amid other positive signs of employment.

Weekly unemployment reports have fallen to their lowest level since the early days of the pandemic in March 2020, but a large employment gap remains.

It’s not that there aren’t enough jobs: Recruiting firm Indeed estimates there are currently about 10.5 million open positions, a loose record for the U.S. job market. ZipRecruiter saw strong gains in job postings in the travel, arts & entertainment, and education sectors on Friday, suggesting broadly these sectors should see strong gains in the future.

Fed officials are closely monitoring job numbers for clues as to whether they can withdraw some of the political aid they have given since the pandemic began.

For the past few weeks, central bankers have been optimistic about the employment situation, but said they must see continued strength before changing course. What is at stake for now is the Fed’s massive monthly bond purchase program, which could be scaled back before the end of the year.

However, if the job data softens, it could lead Fed officials to wait until 2022 before scaling back their purchases. Fed officials have made it clear that rate hikes will come well after the taper starts.

“I still expect them to taper by the end of the year,” said Loh of State Street. “Maybe some of the more aggressive talks about something that happened in September are off the table. I think November is still a possibility.”

The Fed will next meet on September 21-22.

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Health

FDA approval for Pfizer Covid vaccine might come Monday, report says

FDA approval for Pfizer Covid vaccine could come Monday, report says

Empty Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine vials will be delivered on Jan.

Paul Hennessy | NurPhoto | Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration is working on the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, the New York Times reported, citing sources.

The review process could go beyond that date, the Times said, as paperwork and negotiations with the company continue.

The move would make it the first Covid vaccine to move from emergency approval to full FDA approval.

The FDA declined to comment on the Times report to CNBC.

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, told the Associated Press on Aug. 8 that he hoped vaccines would get full approval “within the month of August,” adding that full approval would lead to more companies and schools requiring vaccines.

U.S. companies have tightened vaccination regulations for employees as Covid cases have increased across the country in recent weeks, and some cited full FDA approval as part of the decision-making process.

Full approval could also help convince people who are reluctant to get vaccinated until the FDA has fully approved the vaccination.

According to CDC data on Friday, more than 203 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine have been administered nationwide, fully vaccinating more than 91 million people in the United States.

Pfizer and BioNTech began applying for their biologics license for the two-dose vaccine in May after receiving emergency clearance from the FDA in December. The FDA sets a six month target for approval of high priority drugs.

If formally approved, Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine would remain available in the market after the pandemic ended and the companies could promote the vaccine directly to consumers. Pharmaceutical manufacturers with an EUA are banned from promoting their vaccines, CNBC previously reported.

The companies announced on Aug. 16 that they had initiated the approval process for a booster dose for fully vaccinated individuals after submitting clinical trial data to the FDA.

Top health officials from agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House and the FDA said in a statement Wednesday that the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines declines over time, especially in those with compromised immune systems. They said the US would start distributing booster shots to the public in September.

Read the full New York Times report here.

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World News

Dow rises 220 factors to new report after inflation report is just not as unhealthy as feared

Dow rises 220 points to new record after inflation report is not as bad as feared

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 rose on Wednesday after inflation jumped, but not by quite as much as investors feared when stripping out volatile food and energy prices.

The 30-stock Dow gained 220.30 points, or 0.6%, to 35,484.97 to close at a new record. The index was lifted by names like Caterpillar and Home Depot. The S&P 500 traded up 0.2% to 4,447.70, also notching an all-time high. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded over 0.1% lower to 14,765.14.

July’s Consumer Price Index released Wednesday showed prices jumped 5.4% since last year, compared to expectations of 5.3%, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The government said CPI increased 0.5% in July on month-to-month basis.

But investors were concentrating on the core rate of inflation, which could signal inflation will remain tempered and the economy will remain strong. CPI, excluding energy and food prices, rose by 0.3% last month, below the 0.4% increase expected. Core prices still jumped 4.3% on a year-over-year basis.

“It’s encouraging to see the pace moderating a bit month over month supporting the notion that recent price increases are transitory and reopening related,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*TRADE Financial. “So while inflation continues to run hot, it’s likely that investors are already pricing it in.”

Used car prices, which investors have been watching as one sign of out-of-control inflation, rose just 0.2% in July after surging more than 10% in the prior month.

The data “should help assuage investor fears that the Fed is too laid-back about inflation pressures, ” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. “The details of the data release suggest some easing in the reopening and supply-shortage driven boost to prices, and tentatively suggests that inflation may have peaked. Investors in the transitory camp will feel slightly vindicated.”

The inflation reading supported the Federal Reserve’s belief that high price pressures are “transitory” as the economic recovers from the pandemic-triggered recession.

The 10-year Treasury yield dipped amid the inflation report and a strong auction. The decline in rates accelerated after Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan told CNBC that the Fed should start tapering its bond-buying programs in October.

Oil prices dropped and then recovered after the White House called on OPEC and its allies to increase oil production to support the global recovery from the pandemic.

On Tuesday, the Dow and S&P 500 closed at record highs following the Senate passing the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. The legislation earmarks $550 billion in new spending for areas including transportation and the electric grid. The Nasdaq Composite slid nearly 0.5% on Tuesday, registering its second negative session in the last three.

The march to record highs for stocks comes despite Covid case numbers rising in the U.S. and around the world.

“Widespread vaccine distribution and distancing measures have helped limit the variant’s impact, but we could still see some drag on economic growth as some restrictions are reintroduced and consumers potentially become more cautious,” said Barry Gilbert, asset allocation strategist at LPL Financial. “While we may see an increase in market volatility due to the delta variant, we believe the S&P 500 is still likely to see more gains through the end of the year.”

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— with reporting from CNBC’s Yun Li.

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Health

IPCC UN local weather report is our ‘remaining wake-up name,’ say consultants

IPCC UN climate report is our 'final wake-up call,' say experts

A devastating new UN report warning of certain devastation caused by climate change has been dubbed humanity’s “last wake-up call” by environmental experts.

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, environmentalists outlined the role businesses, countries and individuals can play in containing the crisis. They also shared their hopes for the party’s 26th UN Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, in November.

The United Nations IPCC climate panel released a highly anticipated report on Monday warning that efforts to limit global warming to nearly 1.5 degrees Celsius, or even 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, are in will be “inaccessible” for the next two decades without an immediate, rapid and comprehensive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Implement “ambitious action now”

Meeting policymakers’ temperature targets for 2050 will be difficult but achievable, said Emily Kreps, global director of capital markets at CDP, a nonprofit that helps companies manage their climate impact.

However, this requires “ambitious action” from companies, governments and capital markets, she told Squawk Box Asia on Tuesday.

This should be considered our final wake-up call.

Emily Kreps

Global Director of Capital Markets, CDP

The threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius outlined in the report is a crucial global goal, as it also makes so-called tipping points more likely. Tipping points refer to an irreversible change in the climate system that includes further global warming.

“This should be seen as our last wake-up call,” said Kreps, who encouraged companies to set “concrete and concrete goals”.

Ulka Kelkar, director of climate at the World Resources Institute India, agreed that the pace of change must “accelerate quickly”.

For example, the exit from fossil fuels and the introduction of renewable energies must happen at five times the speed. In the meantime, the development of new, more sustainable technologies needs to move forward, she said.

This is particularly urgent in developing countries like India, which have the ability to circumvent practices that are harmful to the environment.

“Over here we have to start thinking a step forward, we have to skip,” she told Street Signs Asia.

“(That means) more renewable energy to produce (a) large-scale hydrogen that can be used in all of our industries” – from fertilizers and chemicals to steel making, she added.

Expectations for COP26

The report comes as a series of extreme weather events that are wreaking havoc around the world.

In the past few weeks alone, Europe, China and India have been hit by floods. Forest fires have also devastated the United States, Canada, Greece, and Turkey.

The UN report makes it “clear that these events are related to climate change and human impact on the climate,” Mans Nilsson, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, told Squawk Box Europe.

Industrialized countries (must) seal the agreement on a long overdue climate finance package.

Ulka Kelkar

Director, World Resources Institute India

World leaders will discuss the issue further when they meet at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

Kreps said she hoped the conference would produce nationally determined contributions and “science-based goals”.

Meanwhile, Kelkar’s expectations were threefold.

“Developed countries (must) make the deal on a long overdue climate finance package,” said Kelkar, especially to adapt to the extreme events of recent times.

“The second major area is clean technology partnerships: something like green hydrogen, something like the circular economy that uses materials more efficiently. The third is the rules of carbon trading, a market-based tool that enables all of this mitigation. ”,“ She added.

– CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.

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World News

Friday’s jobs report is a wild card, with economists’ estimates all around the map

Friday's jobs report is a wild card, with economists' estimates all over the map

A worker works on a screed tower connection at the Calder Brothers facility in Taylors, South Carolina, USA on July 19, 2021.

Brandon Granger | Calder Brothers Corporation | Reuters

According to the Dow Jones consensus estimate, the economy is projected to add around 845,000 workers in July as the American workforce gradually recovers from its heavy pandemic job losses.

But the uncertainty of Covid – which is spreading again at a rapid pace – has become a wild card for the job market, as well as for the entire economy. The number of new infections in the US is increasing to 100,000 per day, faster than last summer, when there were no generally available vaccines.

Wall Street’s predictions for the July Employment Report, due to be released Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, are sweeping. The Wilmington Trust economists, for example, expect only 350,000 payrolls, while the Jefferies economists forecast 1.2 million new jobs.

“The range is from 1.2 million to 350,000. That just says these numbers have very little confidence,” said Michael Schumacher, director of interest rate strategy at Wells Fargo.

Employment growth has not lived up to earlier expectations of economists, some of whom forecast several months of growth in excess of a million this spring and summer. Instead, employers are struggling with vacancies and the situation is not expected to improve significantly until schools reopen and extended unemployment benefits expire in September.

The fast-spreading delta variant of Covid may not have affected the July report. However, economists say that if individuals are afraid to move back into the economy, new restrictions are put in place, or schools should be closed again, it could slow the rate of economic growth and affect employment.

The employment data is also critical to the Fed’s decision on when to slow its bond purchases, the first step in rolling back its loose policy and a precursor to rate hikes. Fed chairman Jerome Powell said last week he would like some strong employment reports before the Fed begins slashing its $ 120 billion monthly government bond and mortgage purchases.

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“We won’t know much about the balance in the labor market until the job report comes out in October,” said Schumacher.

According to the Dow Jones, the unemployment rate is said to have fallen from 5.9% in June to 5.7%. Average hourly wages are expected to have increased 0.3% month-over-month or 3.9% year-over-year. 850,000 jobs were added in June.

“The reason I have such a high forecast for July is because we’ve lost additional unemployment benefits in 25 states and claims have fallen sharply in those states,” said Jefferies finance economist Aneta Markowska. She added that there is usually a large seasonal decline in July that may not show up this year.

More than 22.3 million Americans were laid off in March and April 2020 when the economy abruptly shut down. In June total employment was 7.13 million below the level of February 2020.

“I was looking for a pretty healthy number, around 850,000 to 900,000, and a drop in the unemployment rate to around 5.7%,” said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist for Charles Schwab. “The main reason we expect a pretty large number is that we expect some of the education jobs to come back. July is a little early, but we’ll see some of those numbers. That could add about 400,000. The seasonal adjustment is likely to make that worse too. “

Jones said she expected the mindset to be strong for the next couple of months.

“We expected the July, August and September period between reopening, schools reopening … job restoration to be quite strong as a result of the American bailout. All of that should make for a pretty strong July, August, September series of numbers, “she said.” Of course the Delta variant is the wild card.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the US reports a seven-day average of nearly 94,000 new cases on Aug. 4, a 48% increase from a week.

Wilmington Trust chief economist Luke Tilley said his low forecast was based on signs of slower growth he is seeing in high-frequency data. “We believe the execution rate is around 500,000 right now. The last month seems a bit over cooked, ”said Tilley.

Other recently released data show a mixed picture for employment.

BMO bond strategist Ben Jeffery said the half-dozen actions he watches tend to be a strong number and the others suggest otherwise. For example, ADP’s monthly payroll report for June was weak with 330,000 jobs versus an expected 683,000. But employment in the ISM service sector rebounded from 49.3 to 53.8. Anything over 50 indicates expansion.

“That [nonfarm payrolls] was always one of the hardest numbers to predict before the pandemic, and you add up all the nuances of the current hiring landscape. That makes it even more difficult, “he said.

Jeffery said the government poll week for the July report, which covers July 12, may not reflect the impact of the Delta variant concerns. “Whatever the number, it is greatly constrained by the fact that concerns about the Delta option weren’t as high during survey week as they are now or during the August survey period,” he said.

Because of this, he doesn’t expect big moves in the bond market unless the report is closer to one end of the forecast range or the other.

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Health

C.D.C. Inner Report Calls Delta Variant as Contagious as Chickenpox

C.D.C. Internal Report Calls Delta Variant as Contagious as Chickenpox

The Delta variant is much more contagious, is more likely to breach vaccine protection, and can cause more serious illness than any other known version of the virus, according to an internal presentation spread within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the agency’s director, admitted on Tuesday that vaccinated people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant carry just as much virus in their nose and throat as unvaccinated people and can spread it just as easily, albeit less often.

But the internal document sets out a broader and even more somber view of the variant.

The delta variant is more transmissible as the viruses that cause MERS, SARS, Ebola, the common cold, seasonal flu, and smallpox, and according to the document copied by the New York Times, it is as contagious as chickenpox.

The immediate next step for the agency is to “realize that the war has changed,” the document reads. The content was first reported by the Washington Post on Thursday evening.

The tone of the document echoes CDC scientists’ concern about the spread of Delta across the country, said a federal official who saw the research described in the document. The agency plans to publish further data on the variant on Friday.

“The CDC is very concerned about the incoming data that Delta is a very serious threat that requires action now,” the official said.

Coronavirus Pandemic and Life Expectancy in the United States

In the US, there were an average of 71,000 new cases a day as of Thursday. The new data suggests that vaccinated people spread the virus and contribute to these numbers – albeit likely to a far lesser extent than those who were not vaccinated.

Dr. Walensky has called transmission by vaccinated people a rare occurrence, but other scientists have suggested it is more common than previously thought.

The agency’s new masking guidelines for vaccinated individuals, introduced on Tuesday, were based on information contained in the document. The CDC recommended that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in public settings in communities with high virus transmission levels.

Updated

July 31, 2021 at 11:50 p.m. ET

However, the internal document indicates that even this recommendation may not go far enough. “In view of the higher transferability and current vaccination protection, universal masking is essential,” the document says.

The agency’s data suggests that people with weak immune systems should wear masks even in places with low virus transmission. This should include vaccinated Americans who are in contact with young children, older adults, or other vulnerable people.

According to the July 24 CDC quoted in the internal presentation, there are about 35,000 symptomatic infections per week among 162 million Americans vaccinated. However, the agency does not track all mild or asymptomatic infections, so the actual incidence may be higher.

Understand the state of vaccine mandates in the United States

Infection with the delta variant produces amounts of virus in the airways that are ten times higher than in people infected with the also highly contagious alpha variant, the document says.

According to a recent study, the amount of virus in a person infected with Delta is a thousand times higher than in people infected with the original version of the virus.

The CDC document draws on data from several studies, including an analysis of a recent Provincetown, Massachusetts outbreak that began in the city after the July 4th celebrations. By Thursday, that cluster had grown to 882 cases. About 74 percent had been vaccinated, said the local health authorities.

A detailed analysis of the prevalence of the cases showed that people infected with Delta carry enormous amounts of virus in their nose and throat regardless of vaccination status, according to the CDC document.

“This is one of the most impressive examples of citizen science I’ve seen,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. “The people involved in the Provincetown outbreak meticulously created lists of their contacts and exposures.”

Infection with the Delta variant can be more likely to lead to serious illness, the document says. Studies from Canada and Scotland found that people infected with the variant were more likely to be hospitalized, while research in Singapore suggested that they were more likely to need oxygen.

Still, the CDC’s numbers show the vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death in people who have been vaccinated, experts said.

“Overall, Delta is the disturbing variant that we already knew it was,” said John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. “But the sky is not falling and vaccinations are still very protective against the worst of the consequences.”

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World News

Jobs report June 2021:

Jobs report June 2021:

Job growth leaped higher in June as businesses looked to keep up with a rapidly recovering U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 850,000 for the month, compared to the Dow Jones estimate of 706,000 and better than the upwardly revised 583,000 in May. The unemployment rate, however, rose to 5.9% against the 5.6% expectation.

The jobless rate increase came even though the labor force participation rate was unchanged at 61.6%. A separate figure that accounts for discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons fell sharply to 9.8%, with the 0.4 percentage point decline putting the so-called real unemployment rate below 10% for the first time since March 2020.

Hiring accelerated as the second quarter morphed into a summer that will see a closer to return to normal for Americans held captive for the past year due to the pandemic-related restrictions.

As the data continues to point higher, economists are looking for GDP growth in the second quarter to approach 10%, a stunning continuation of a rebound helped by vaccines that have sharply reduced Covid-19 case rates along with hospitalizations and deaths.

Hospitality continued to be the prime beneficiary of the reopening as workers returned to jobs at bars, restaurants, hotels and the like.

The industry notched a gain of 340,000 amid easing restrictions across the country. That total included 194,000 in bars and restaurants, but still left the sector 2.2 million shy of where it was in February 2020 before the pandemic began.

Other notable gains came in education, which totaled 269,000 across state, local and private hiring, while professional and business services increased by 72,000 and retail added 67,000.

The other services industry added 56,000 jobs, including a gain of 29,000 in personal and laundry services, a subsector that has been seen as a proxy for the resumption of normal business activity. Social assistance added 32,000, while wholesale trade contributed 21,000 to the total and mining grew by 10,000.

Manufacturing edged up 15,000 for the month, though construction lost 7,000 positions despite a sizzling housing industry where new building has been held back by suppl shortages and what had been soaring lumber prices before the recent plunge.

This is breaking news. Please check back here for updates.

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Politics

Medicaid Enrollment Jumped Throughout the Pandemic, New Report Says

Medicaid Enrollment Jumped During the Pandemic, New Report Says

Medicaid enrollment soared during the coronavirus pandemic, with nearly 10 million Americans joining the public health program for the poor by January, a government report released Monday shows.

80 million people – more than ever in the history of the program – are now on Medicaid insurance, which is shared by the state and the federal government. The new figures show the increasingly important role of the program not only as a safety net, but also as a pillar of American health insurance, which covers a quarter of the population.

“The purpose of Medicaid during times like these is when there is an economic downturn,” said Peggah Khorrami, a researcher at Harvard Chan TH School of Public Health who has studied the program’s surge in enrollments during the pandemic. “As people lose their jobs, Medicaid comes in and we insure people that way.”

The Affordable Care Act transformed Medicaid from a targeted health service aimed at helping specific groups of people – such as expectant mothers and people with disabilities – to a much broader program that provides largely free insurance to most people below a certain income threshold. The exception is in 12 states, mostly in the South, that have resisted expanding Medicaid under the Health Act to cover all adults on incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty line, which would be $ 17,774 for one person this year .

However, the expansion of Medicaid in most states since most of the ACA came into effect in 2014 has proven important during the pandemic, creating a public source of protection for the newly unemployed that did not exist a decade ago. Adult enrollment at Medicaid grew twice as fast as child enrollment in the past year, suggesting that widespread job loss related to the pandemic has created a large group of newly eligible adults.

“There has been significant growth in Medicaid enrollments over the past economic downturn, but their focus has been on children,” said Rachel Garfield, co-director of the Medicaid and Uninsured Program for the Kaiser Family Foundation. “This time around, it’s interesting that a lot of the enrollment is among adults.”

Ms. Garfield also noted that Medicaid coverage rose much faster during this recession than in previous downturns. At the start of the Great Recession in 2009, fewer than 4 million Americans joined the program.

There may also be increased interest among uninsured Americans who were previously eligible for Medicaid but only chose to enroll because of heightened health concerns during the pandemic.

“The surge we are seeing is exactly how Medicaid works: the program steps in to support people and their families during difficult times,” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, who oversaw the Medicaid program, in a Biden administration Explanation.

In the years before the pandemic, the number of Medicaid enrollments had decreased. More than a million children lost insurance coverage between December 2017 and June 2019, a trend that rocked health care proponents. Many attributed the changes to new rules during the Trump administration that made it more difficult to sign up for the benefits.

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Health

Scientists Report Earliest Identified Coronavirus Circumstances in 5 US States

Scientists Report Earliest Known Coronavirus Cases in Five US States

When did the coronavirus arrive in the US?

The first infection was confirmed on January 21, 2020 in a Washington state resident who had recently returned from Wuhan, China. Shortly afterwards, experts concluded that the virus had been in the country for weeks.

A study published Tuesday provides new evidence: Based on an analysis of blood tests, scientists identified seven people in five states who may have been infected long before the first confirmed cases in those states. The results suggest that the virus was already circulating in Illinois, for example, on December 24, 2019, although the first case in that state was confirmed a month later.

But the new study is flawed, some experts said: it did not adequately address the possibility that the antibodies were against coronaviruses, which cause colds, and the results could be a quirk of the tests used. In addition, the researchers did not have any travel information for any of the patients, which may have helped explain the test results.

“This is an interesting paper because it raises the idea that everyone is believing that there were infections that went undiagnosed,” said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

But the small number of samples that tested positive made it difficult to be sure that these were real cases of infection and not just a methodological error. “It’s hard to tell what is a real signal and what is not,” he said.

However, if the results are correct, they reinforce the notion that bad testing in the US missed most of the cases in the first few weeks of the pandemic.

“You can’t see what’s going on without testing,” said Keri Althoff, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author of the study. “In those earlier months, some of those states that we didn’t suspect had a lot of infections.”

It is no surprise that there may have been undocumented cases at the start of the pandemic, said Sarah Cobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. Experts “already knew this was the case when they looked at trends in excess mortality and hospital admissions,” she said.

The latest model from Dr. Cobey estimated that there were about 10,000 infections in Illinois as of March 1, 2020. “Given the dire state of the tests, there was no doubt we missed the earliest broadcast,” she added.

In the study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Dr. Althoff and her colleagues took blood samples from more than 24,000 people. They found nine people who donated blood between January 2 and March 18 last year and who appeared to have antibodies to the coronavirus.

Updated

June 15, 2021, 9:21 p.m. ET

Seven of the samples were from blood donated in their states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and Massachusetts prior to the date of initial diagnosis. The results agree with those of another study that identified coronavirus antibodies in donated blood as early as mid-December 2019.

Participants were enrolled in a long-term project by the National Institutes of Health called All of Us, which aims to involve one million people in the United States to increase minority representation in research. Only about half of the study participants were white.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the virus would have infected very few people. A low prevalence increases the likelihood that an antibody test will incorrectly identify a sample as an antibody when it doesn’t, said Dr. Hensley – a false positive.

The researchers tried to minimize this possibility by using two antibody tests in a row. The first test identified 147 samples as possible antibodies to the coronavirus; the second reduced that number to nine.

The team also analyzed 1,000 blood samples from the 2018/19 cold and flu season and found none that tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus.

“It is still very possible that some of these are false positives,” said Dr. Josh Denny, CEO of All of Us. But “the fact that they would all be false positives seems pretty unlikely with what we’ve done.”

The researchers said they planned to contact participants to inquire about travel history and would continue to analyze additional samples to estimate when the coronavirus hit American shores.

“The exact month it likely came to the US is still unknown,” said Dr. Althoff. “Right now, it’s essentially a puzzle, and our study is only part of that puzzle.”