The president of the pilots association, Eric Ferguson, outside Congress asks for help to keep the jobs in the industry.CHIP SOMODEVILLA / AFP
The United States has regained just over half of the 22 million jobs destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic, but the pace of growth has slowed as cases of infected hit new records.
245,000 jobs were created in November, less than half of the 610,000 added in October, according to figures released Friday by the Labor Department.
The unemployment rate fell slightly two tenths to stand at 6.7%.
The drastic slowdown in job growth in November, the seventh month in a row that job growth has slowed, suggests that the global powerhouse's economic recovery has been weakening as the pandemic has raged.
Last Wednesday, more than 200,000 new cases were reported and at least 2,804 deaths were registered, the highest daily figure since the beginning of the crisis.
In the grim outlook left by the pandemic, there are business premises that have closed their doors again forced by restrictive measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
Figures released this Friday show that employment fell in the government sector and in the retail category, which includes physical stores.
Before the health crisis, the 245,000 new jobs would have been considered a positive number, but the US has yet to regain nearly 10 million more jobs to return to the pre-virus labor economy.
This disadvantage, which has been added to the increase in the proportion of unemployed who say they lost their jobs forever, has experts on their toes.
Despite the fact that expansion has slowed since the rapid rebound in the third quarter, the US economy has regained much ground lost in the first part of the year.
Consumers are spending more money and jobless claims are falling, two indicators that show the growth path on which economic growth is advancing, although now at a slow pace.
Companies trust that once the vaccine is released they will be able to reopen and consumers will regain the confidence to travel, go to the movies or eat inside the premises.
