Xinhua News Agency, Washington, January 8 (Reporter Xu Yuan Gaopan) Data released by the U.S. Department of Labor on the 8th showed that the U.S. unemployment rate in December 2020 remained flat at 6.7% month-on-month, and the employment population in the non-agricultural sector

Xinhua News Agency, Washington, January 8 (Reporter Xu Yuan Gaopan) Data released by the U.S. Department of Labor on the 8th showed that the U.S. unemployment rate in December 2020 remained flat at 6.7% month-on-month, and the employment population in the non-agricultural sector fell by about 140,000, highlighting the setback of the new crown epidemic, which has caused the US employment market and economic recovery process to be set.

The U.S. Department of Labor said that the number of non-agricultural sector employment has declined for the first time in eight months, reflecting the recent increase in confirmed cases of new crown and the impact of various economic restrictions on the employment market to curb the spread of the epidemic. In December 2020, significant layoffs in the leisure, hospitality and private education sectors offset employment growth in industries such as professional and commercial services, retail trade and construction.

data shows that in December 2020, the US labor participation rate remained flat at 61.5% month-on-month, a decrease of 1.8 percentage points compared with February 2020. The unemployed population remained unchanged month-on-month at about 10.7 million, nearly double the increase from February 2020. The number of long-term unemployed people who have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks is as high as 4 million, accounting for 37.1% of the total unemployed population, reflecting that the US job market foundation remains fragile.

On January 8, in New York, USA, pedestrians walked by near the New York Department of Labor building. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Guo Ke)

Analysts believe that the US job market ended 2020 with a pessimistic tone, and there are three main reasons: First, as the number of confirmed cases of new crown has surged again, U.S. states and cities have taken new restrictions on enterprises; second, the cold weather has suppressed the growth trend of face-to-face service companies, including the catering industry; third, the boosting effect of a package of economic relief measures issued at the end of March 2020 has disappeared before the signing of a new round of aid plans into a bill.

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11, workers worked at a construction site in New York, USA. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Guo Ke)

On January 8, medical staff sent a patient to an ambulance outside a hospital in New York, USA. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Guo Ke)

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