The unemployment rate edged down from 6.3% in January to 6.2% in February, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, employers added 379,000 jobs to payrolls, though total employment remained down by 9 million jobs — or around 6% — compared to February 2020.
About 22% of the 10 million unemployed people in February seeking work were on temporary layoff from their jobs. That is down from 78% in April 2020, when 18 million of the 23.2 million unemployed people had been laid off temporarily — as businesses made short-term cuts in the early uncertainty of the pandemic.
