Infographic: Where Job Losses Linger 17 Months Into The Pandemic

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. economy with full force in March 2020, causing stock markets and economic indicators to plummet and erasing nearly 20 million jobs in a matter of weeks, many had hoped that this crisis would go away as quickly as it had arrived. And while some sectors recovered relatively quickly once restrictions had been eased and businesses were allowed to reopen, we are now 17 months into the crisis and the U.S. labor market is still 5.7 million jobs short of its pre-pandemic level.

As the following chart shows, the vast majority of those lost jobs are service-providing jobs, with the leisure and hospitality sector alone accounting for 1.74 million of the total 4.99 million lost service sector jobs. Job losses in education, health services and government are also lingering, while at the other end of the spectrum jobs lost in utilities, transportation and warehousing and the financial sector have largely been recovered.

Despite the latest uptick in COVID-19 cases caused in large part by the emergence of the Delta variant, the U.S. labor market continued its recovery in July. According to the latest jobs report, the U.S. economy added 943,000 jobs last month, with the largest gains once again registered in the leisure and hospitality sector (+380,000). The better-than-expected reading was also helped by a significant increase in local government (+230,000) and education and health services jobs (+83,000).