Job creation accelerates in the US and the unemployment rate falls to 6% in March

A store in Arlington (Virginia) advertises new hires.OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP

The US economy added 916,000 jobs in March, the largest increase since August.

This impulse brought the unemployment rate to 6%, 0.2 percentage points less than in February, according to the Labor Department reported this Friday.

Despite the fact that the world's leading power begins to recover from restrictions to stop the spread of covid-19, there are still 8.4 million fewer jobs than before the outbreak of the pandemic.

"The growth in employment was generalized in March, with gains in the leisure and hospitality sector, public and private education and construction," the statistical office of the North American country stressed in a statement.

The figures are better than the analysts' average expected and reflect a stronger recovery thanks to the accelerated vaccination campaign.

"This improvement in the labor market reflects the continuous resumption of economic activity that had been constrained by the pandemic," the US authorities note.

The number of long-term unemployed - those who are unemployed for more than 27 weeks - closed at 4.2 million, almost unchanged from the previous month.

In February of last year, a few weeks before the pandemic crisis broke out, there were 3.1 million fewer Americans in this group.

Still without Biden's stimulus plan

Last month, the Joe Biden Administration got Congress to pass a massive $ 1.9 million stimulus plan to revive the economy and help homes and businesses.

That unprecedented program includes direct transfers of $ 1,400 (almost 1,200 euros) to families and predicts that the employment figures for April could be more encouraging.

This week, the Democratic president also announced a massive infrastructure plan that aims for a structural transformation geared towards a green economy, but also aims to create millions of jobs.

Rubeela Farooqi, chief economist for the United States at the HFE consultancy, said that net payroll growth was higher than expected in March.

"The news about job growth will be more positive in the coming months as the health situation is less of a threat and the distribution of vaccines allows a return to a post-pandemic situation of normality," he added in statements to AFP.

For its part, the consulting firm Pantheon Macro indicated in a note that the economy is still operating with 11 million fewer jobs than would have been expected if the pandemic had not occurred.

"We hope that half of those jobs can be recovered by the middle of the year," he said.

According to the latest data from the government Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the United States has vaccinated nearly 100 million people with at least one dose and more than 56 million have received both inoculations.