Last month’s huge wave of omicron infections is thought to have weakened hiring in January, though the pullback is considered all but sure to prove a temporary one.
Last month, a survey by the Census Bureau found that nearly 8.8 million people didn’t work in early January because they were either sick with COVID-19 or had to care for someone who was. That was more than triple the corresponding number in early December. A majority of those workers likely benefited from employer-paid sick leave, and their staying home would not have affected the job count.
The Labor Department uses a different method to calculate the monthly unemployment rate. With this method, even workers who were home sick during last month would be counted as employed if they have a job to return to. Any hiring slowdown or job loss would come after the U.S. gained more jobs last year, adjusted for the size of the workforce, than in any year since 1978. The unemployment rate fell by nearly 3 percentage points — from 6.7% to 3.9% — the sharpest yearly decline on records. Much of that improvement represented a rebound from record job losses in 2020, driven by the pandemic.
The U.S. is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, a worker shortage and soaring prices. NBCLX Political Editor Noah Pransky breaks down what's causing these complex issues, and what the Biden White House is able to do about them.
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