Breaking Down the Jobs Report — May 2021

Beyond the headline numbers.

Photo by Lukas from Pexels

The May jobs report wasn’t quite as disastrous as April’s, but it wasn’t a return to the happy-happy-fun-time envisioned by the Biden administration earlier this spring.

Here are the top level numbers.

• 559,000 jobs added
• 5.8% unemployement rate, down from 6.1% in April

That may seem like good news, but it’s not. By a long shot.

Let’s put these numbers in context by comparing them to the jobs situation during the financial crisis of 2008/2009.

Great Recession

• 8.4 millions jobs lost in 21 months (2/09–10/09)
• “Barbecue” recovery (i.e. low and slow), with job gains ranging between 100,000 and 300,000 per month through 2019

Pandemic Recession

• 22.4 millions jobs lost in 2 months (3/20–4/20)
• “Incomplete” recovery (i.e. permanent job losses), with only 11,000,000 jobs gained back in 4 months (5/20–8/20)
• Still 8 million fewer employed compared to pre-pandemic.

The pandemic recession was a much deeper hit to the economy than the Great Recession, and we are still nowhere near a full recovery. So what’s going on?