It is not yet clear who will win the election, but regardless of who becomes President of the United States, one of the biggest priorities for the next administration is indeed clear: Overcoming the crisis in America's labor market.
America's employment crisis is far from over. The economy was still losing 10.7 million jobs last month before the pandemic forced businesses to close.
On the one hand, this means that nearly half of the 22 million jobs lost in the crisis have been recovered. But the pace of improvement has slowed in recent months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics report for October, due out Friday at 8:30 am ET, is expected to show further slowdown in the labor market recovery.
According to the forecasts of economists, 600,000 jobs appeared in the US economy in October, slightly less than the 661,000 in the previous month. The unemployment rate is expected to fall to 7.7% from 7.9% in September - the highest unemployment rate in the country ever before the presidential election.
Wednesday's US employment report came in well below expectations, showing that private employers added only 365,000 jobs in October. Economists expected 650,000 people. ADP and government reports do not correlate, but experts pay attention to both to get a complete picture of the labor market.
Any improvement is good news, but the recovery is far from over and the situation does not look encouraging for the unemployed.
Regardless of who is the next president, Washington needs to act quickly to provide relief to those in need and set the country on a path to full job recovery.
