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When the Covid-19 pandemic arrived in the United States in March 2020, forcing large parts of the economy to shut down practically overnight, millions of Americans lost their jobs in a matter of weeks. Unemployment surged to an unprecedented 23 million in April 2020, 50 percent higher than the previous record set in the Great Recession in 2009.
And while the Covid-related labor market contraction was by far the sharpest on record, the recovery that followed was almost as swift. Once Covid restrictions were eased, millions of Americans immediately returned to work before progress slowed to a crawl amid a winter wave of new infections. Nevertheless, unemployment had halved to 10.8 million by the end of 2020 as 12 million lost jobs had been recovered.
With steady progress through 2021 and the first half of 2022, the jobs recovery was eventually completed in August 2022, when total nonfarm employment passed its pre-pandemic high of 152.5 million. Hiring didn’t stop there, however. Despite the Fed’s efforts to cool the labor market in order to bring down inflation, hiring continued to be strong throughout 2022. By the end of the year, nonfarm payrolls had climbed to 153.7 million, exceeding their pre-pandemic peak by 1.2 million.
This chart shows the cumulative change in total nonfarm employment in the United States since February 2020.
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