There’s hope ahead. LaborIQ® forecasts economic acceleration in the back half of next year
ThinkWhy, a SaaS company helping businesses navigate the labor market, released its national jobs report following an announcement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the economy added 245,000 jobs in November, with the unemployment rate at 6.7 percent.
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“The first vaccine recipients — frontline medical workers and nursing home residents — are unlikely to change their behavior all that much as a result of being vaccinated”
Even with this morning’s report of 245,000 jobs added for November, the rise in virus counts and colder weather indicate a continued slow pace of recovery through early 2021. During the pandemic, many industries have seen job growth level off, as the cold weather restricts consumer behavior and certain types of employment. Until a vaccine is widely available, the speed of the recovery will remain slow and uneven.
“The first vaccine recipients — frontline medical workers and nursing home residents — are unlikely to change their behavior all that much as a result of being vaccinated,” said Marianne Wanamaker, labor economist and ThinkWhy executive advisory board member. “But the second tranche of vaccinations, older Americans and those with pre-existing conditions, are high-propensity spenders. These are the people who have largely stayed at home since March. Freeing up this group to spend and be active in the economy again will likely be a huge boom to consumer spending and business activity. That vaccine-induced spending should have positive job implications, hopefully by Q2 2021.”
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Looking to the future, the U.S. still has 9.8 million jobs to recover from their levels before the pandemic, and LaborIQ® by ThinkWhy projects that jobs will not be fully recouped until early 2023. The biggest storylines to watch through early 2021 are:
- Timing, efficacy, and number of people who will get a vaccine
- Impacts to industries and locations based on tightening social restrictions to contain the virus
- Stimulus to keep businesses and consumers afloat
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