Here we are, astonishingly, at the last #JobsDay of 2020. It’s a moment to take stock of where things stand after the first 11 months of 2020 (and the first 9 months of COVID). Brace yourselves. 1/

We added 245,000 jobs in November, but the labor market remains in crisis. We lost so many jobs in March and April that even though we’ve now added jobs for 7 months in a row, we are still nearly 10 million jobs below where we were in February. 2/

Further, in the year before the recession, we added 194,000 jobs per month on average, so from February to November, we could have added around 1.7 million jobs. That means the total gap in the labor market right now is on the order of 11.6 million jobs. 3/

But the most disturbing thing is that we are adding fewer and fewer jobs each month. Slowing job growth is a disaster when you are 11.6 million jobs in the hole. *This* is not the shape of recovery we want to be seeing right now. 4/

And the “easy” gains are largely played out. The number of people on temporary layoff (who might get rehired) has dropped from 18.1 million in April to just 2.8 million in Nov. And COVID is surging. Without congressional action, growth will slow even further in coming months. 5/

Crucial policies to boost the economy are fiscal aid to state and local governments and reinstating/extending the unemployment insurance provisions of the CARES Act. The pandemic UI provisions alone could create or save 5.1 million jobs. 6/ https://www.epi.org/blog/reinstating-and-extending-the-pandemic-unemployment-insurance-programs-through-2021-could-create-or-save-5-1-million-jobs/

W/o congressional action, all remaining pandemic UI programs will expire on Dec 26th. Millions of workers are depending on these programs (DOL reports 13.4 mil for the wk ending Nov 14). When they expire, millions of these workers & their families will be financially ruined. 7/

The House passed a $3 trillion relief package in May, then a $2.2 trillion relief package in November, and on Wednesday Pelosi and Schumer announced they backed a $908 billion bipartisan bill as a basis for negotiations. 8/

But so far, McConnell has blocked meaningful additional COVID relief—knowing full well that millions will see their benefits disappear on Dec 26 if he doesn’t act. 9/

The unemployment rate declined from 6.9% to 6.7% in November, but entirely for “bad” reasons—400,000 workers dropped out of the labor force. The share of working-age people with a job ticked *down*. 10/

At 6.7%, the unemployment rate remains in recessionary territory (it’s higher than the unemployment rate ever got in the early 2000s downturn). Further, the unemployment rate is not counting all coronavirus-related job losses. 11/

In November there were 10.7 million workers who were officially unemployed. But there were an additional 0.6 million workers who were temporarily unemployed but who were being misclassified as “employed not a work.” 12/

Further, the total number of workers who were out of work as a result of the virus but were being counted as out of the labor force instead of unemployed because they weren’t actively seeking work increased to 5 million. 13/

And there are at least another 2.7 million who are unemployed but are not being counted as unemployed because CPS survey nonresponse is nonrandom, and nonresponders are more likely than the general population to be unemployed. 14/ https://econweb.ucsd.edu/~jhamilto/AH2.pdf https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA842-1.html

That’s 19.0 million workers who were either officially unemployed or otherwise out of work as a result of the virus in November. If all these workers were taken into account, the unemployment rate would have been 11.2% in November. 15/

There are also 7.1 million workers who are employed but have seen a drop in hours and pay as a result of the virus in November—a slight increase from October. 16/ https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/covid19-table5.xlsx

So altogether, 19.0 million workers are either officially unemployed or otherwise out of work because of the virus, and another 7.1 million are employed but have seen a drop in hours and pay, for a total of 26.1 million workers directly hurt by the COVID recession. 17/

That is 15.5% of the workforce—and it doesn’t count those who lost a job or hours earlier in the pandemic but are back to work now. The cumulative count of those harmed would be much greater. 18/

The 26.1 million also ignores the fact that even workers who are employed and haven't had their hours cut are hurt by the recession. When job openings are scarce, workers’ leverage dissolves. Employers don’t have to pay well when they know workers don’t have outside options. 19/

Another grim finding is that we are down 1.3 million state and local government jobs over the last 9 months—most of it (more than 1.0 million) in education. THIS IS A MINDBOGGLING UNFORCED ERROR. Senate Republicans could fix this immediately with aid to state & local govts. 20/

And a reminder that it is not true that "everyone" is working from home because of the pandemic—only 21.8% of employed people report having teleworked or worked at home in the last 4 weeks because of the pandemic. That's less than one in four workers! 21/ https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/covid19-table1.xlsx

November was the 9th month of the COVID crisis, which means long-term unemployment (unemployment lasting more than six months) is now spiking. In the last three months there was an increase of in long-term unemployment of 2.3 million. 22/

The recovery remains highly racially inequitable. The white unemployment rate is 5.9%, the Latinx unemployment rate is 8.4%, and the Black unemployment rate is 10.3%. 23/

Our history and present of structural racism dramatically affect the labor market. B/c of things like occupational segregation, discrimination, & other disparities rooted in white supremacy, this crisis is hitting Black and Brown workers far harder than white workers. 24/