The July Jobs Report and What You Need to Know

• Author: Jessica Williams
• Posted: 2024-03-08

May and June were record months for the United States in terms of job growth. After losing nearly 30 million jobs in March and April due to the novel Coronavirus and the economic shut downs all across America, most experts had figured that we would crash into another Great Depression as a nation, with some predictions going as high as 80% unemployed across the national landscape. However, America was able to rebound in a huge way in the months of May and June, adding millions upon millions of jobs. Though our economy is only as strong as its current state, unable to operate based on what past numbers were. So, this leaves many people worried in August about what July’s numbers were. So we will explore the numbers and what people should take away from last month’s report, our most recent on record.

There’s good and bad news here. The bad news: America didn’t add nearly as many jobs in July as the month previous. However, that leads right into the good news: Even amid more state shut downs due to rising numbers of virus cases, America still managed to add another 1.5 million net jobs. This means that even considering how many jobs were lost in some industries, we added another one and a half million more than were lost. So, that is indeed good news for the American economy. It means fewer people on unemployment benefits and a stronger economy that’s proving to be able to handle tragedy a lot better than most experts assumed it would under a Trump presidency.

The issue with economic “experts,” however, is that they’re as divided by party lines as our politicians. While right-wing economists predict unprecedented booms every single month, left-wing economists continue to tell the world that America’s economy is failing and that another depression is just minutes away. The truth, as with most things, is somewhere in the middle. So, what you need to know as a concerned reader is that things are not going great, but they’re going a lot better than could have been expected with such a pandemic sweeping the nation. With only 1.2 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the month of July, this is a great rebound from the 10 million or so filing every month in the weeks previous.

A lot of these jobs are coming back to the public due to many states opening back up. Florida, for example, received a lot of heavy criticism for opening up Disney World and other places of amusement. The state is experiencing a spike in Coronavirus cases, to be sure, but the number of people who recover and survive the virus is also at an all-time high. For people simply focused on the economic aspect, Florida making thousands of jobs available for its citizens is good news. A few other states are following suit, despite the fact that virus numbers continue to rise on a national level.

More good news: Layoffs were also down for the third straight month, and millions of more employees were put back on full-time schedules, whereas many had lost much of their weekly hours in the months previous. Overall, there is some very good news to take away.

The Impact of a Fluctuating Economy

Though for every silver lining one could highlight, there’s usually a dark cloud in the middle. Very rarely do the polarized political economists agree on anything, but one thing on which most seem to agree is that America’s fluctuating economy is going to hurt us in the long run. Whether it’s from increased government spending or consumer confidence continuing to drop, what a lot of experts fear in the future is inflation and people basically hoarding their money instead of stimulating the economy through spending. The government cannot provide indefinite stimulus, so at some point the American people are going to have to spend the money they earn in larger numbers.

No one can be entirely sure what the future holds for America’s economy. Prior to the Coronavirus pandemic that swept the globe very quickly, America’s economy had been stronger than it’s been in decades. Fortunately, it’s managing to show glimpses of that strength, as it refuses to collapse and continues to rebound. For America’s sake, most are hoping that the economy continues to run strong throughout the course of the pandemic.