The United States accelerates job creation in the summer and manages to lower the unemployment rate to 5.4%

A woman next to a hiring sign before entering a retail store in Morton Grove, Illinois.Nam Y. Huh / AP

The US economy continues to shake off the pandemic and is advancing strongly.

The unemployment rate fell in July to 5.4%, the lowest level since the start of the pandemic (in March 2020 it was 4.4%).

The labor market added 943,000 new jobs last month, according to data published this Friday by the Labor Department.

The figure, which beat the most optimistic expectations, marks the largest rebound in employment since the previous summer.

However, experts fear a further disruption to economic growth due to the delta variant of the coronavirus and the increasing odds that this mutation will force tougher restrictions.

More information

• The OECD improves its global growth forecast again due to the strong pull of the United States

• The United States economy grows 1.6% in the second quarter and recovers the pre-pandemic level

The reopening of schools and the return to almost normality in services have driven the recovery of jobs destroyed by the pandemic.

Hotels and restaurants happily closed their accounts for July, adding 327,000 jobs that month.

Meanwhile, public schools added 221,000.

These two sectors already account for more than half of the jobs created in the largest employment boom since August 2020, when the number of new jobs reached one million.

Economists expected July to shed 860,000 new jobs.

The economy of the greatest power on the planet smiles. But employers complain of growing difficulties in finding workers willing to enter their payroll amid the most significant reopening since the health crisis erupted - a record 9.2 million jobs available to start work were reached in May. -. Some companies blame this situation on federal unemployment benefits, which, in addition to the regular state subsidy, provides $ 300 (about 255 euros) a week to unemployed people during the pandemic. “My advice to employers who say they can't find workers? Get paid more! "Said US President Joe Biden in an appearance at the end of June. In July the salary increased 4% compared to the previous year.

The coronavirus disrupted 128 consecutive months of growth in the United States and led the country into a brief recession last spring. The country's shutdown destroyed more than 22 million jobs in March and April last year, when the pandemic was at its worst. Since then, it has recovered nearly 17 million jobs. But there are still 5.7 million fewer jobs compared to February 2020. Experts now fear that the delta variant will break this positive trend.