Strong growth in US jobs, but labor market remains well short of normal - Jason Furman and Willie Powell

August 6, 2021, Opinion: "The US economy added 943,000 jobs in July, a noticeable pickup from the average of 563,000 jobs over the previous six months. This still leaves the economy 7.6 million jobs short of pre-pandemic projections. At the same time the unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent (with even larger reductions in the Black and Hispanic/Latino unemployment rates) while labor force participation also improved. A range of other indicators also improved sharply including reductions in long-term unemployment and broader measures of labor underutilization such as the “realistic” unemployment rate (which adjusts for the unusually large reduction in labor force participation)."

HKS Author - Jason Furman