Biden’s immense economic challenge: putting 10 million people back to work

(Reuters) – President Joe Biden pushed for more fiscal support on Friday to tackle one of the biggest challenges created by the pandemic COVID-19 – how to get millions of unemployed Americans back to work.

The labor market recovered a small piece of ground in January, when the economy created 49,000 jobs, according to a report released Friday by the Department of Labor. But the report showed that labor market growth is stagnating, doing little to close the huge gap created by the pandemic.

“At this rate, it will be ten years before we reach full employment,” Biden said Friday morning at the White House.

About half of the 22 million jobs lost at the height of the pandemic have been recovered. But that still leaves a void of around 10 million jobs, disproportionately occupied by women and minorities in low-paid jobs.

Jared Bernstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, pointed to an increase in long-term unemployment and the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on black women and workers, while emphasizing that it is important to act soon.

“Today’s (employment) report is yet another reminder that our economy is still coming out of a deeper hole than the Great Recession and needs additional relief,” Bernstein said during a press conference at the White House on Friday .

Here’s a look at the people who may need more help as the economy recovers:

DIFFICULT MINORITIES

With the economy reopening last year due to widespread outages, many office workers have adapted to remote work and other industries have called people back to their jobs.

But many black, Hispanic and Asian workers who were overrepresented in the low-paid occupations most affected by the pandemic are still unemployed, such as waiters, bartenders, cooks and housekeepers.

The general unemployment rate fell to 6.3% in January. But within that rate are huge racial disparities – more than 9% of black workers are unemployed, compared to less than 6% of white workers:

Graphics: racial disparities widen racial disparities widen –

WOMEN DRAWN OUT

Before the pandemic, the proportion of women working or looking for work was increasing, thanks to record economic expansion.

The crisis reversed these gains, in part because the closure of schools and daycare centers left working mothers with a weaker support system.

About 2.5 million women left the workforce during the pandemic, compared with 1.8 million men, according to Department of Labor data.

Graphics: Women leaving the workforce Women leaving the workforce –

Biden says he wants to help more women get back to work through policies that reopen schools safely and make the daycare more accessible.

SECTOR BY SECTOR

Companies that depend on travel or people who spend time close to each other at home have had the slowest recovery. Many people who made a living working in the kitchen, preparing drinks or cleaning hotel rooms are still unemployed.

Leisure and hospitality employment fell 23% in January from pre-pandemic levels in February 2020, more than any other sector.

Graphics: Patchwork recovery: jobs by sector –

Economists expect many of these jobs to return after coronavirus vaccines are widely distributed and consumers are more comfortable spending money on restaurants, bars and other entertainment venues. But it is not clear whether employment will return completely to previous levels.

LONG-TERM EMPLOYEES

The job search has extended to some people, including many in the leisure and hospitality industry.

The “long-term unemployed”, or those who have been out of work for at least six months, now represent about 40% of the total unemployed, or about 4 million people, compared to about 20% before the pandemic.

Research shows that people who are long-term unemployed may find it more difficult to find new jobs, putting them at greater risk of facing wage cuts or leaving the labor market.

Charts: longer periods of unemployment –

Biden wants to create federally subsidized jobs in health, clean energy and other fields that could help long-term unemployed take on new roles.

THROUGH THE MAP

Designing federal policies to help the unemployed can be especially challenging because job losses vary widely from state to state.

Jobs in Idaho, Utah and Kansas had fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels in December. But the situation was more dire in New York and Nevada and Hawaii, which depend on tourism.

This can lead to major disagreements between lawmakers about how much more aid is needed to help the economy and the labor market get back to health.

Graphics: Patchwork recovery: jobs by state –