Americans Who Lost Jobs Due to COVID-19 Down 11.2% Compared to Previous Month

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] The number of Americans who quit their jobs due to a COVID-19 diagnosis or to care for patients decreased by 11.2% compared to last month. There is growing optimism that the U.S. labor market will recover from the shock caused by the Omicron variant.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau on the 16th (local time), the number of unemployed due to COVID-19 from January 26 to February 7 was recorded at 7.77 million. This is an 11.2% (980,000) decrease from the previous survey (December 29 to January 10), which reported 8.75 million.

The number of Americans who quit their jobs to care for children not attending school or daycare was 5.05 million, a decrease of 278,000 during the same period. Those who did not work due to fear of infection also decreased by 200,000. The number of people temporarily laid off or who lost jobs due to employers temporarily closing or shutting down businesses because of COVID-19 decreased by 1.25 million.

Robert Dent, Senior Economist at Nomura Securities, said, "This is very encouraging from the labor supply perspective," and added, "If new infections continue to decline, this number could keep decreasing."

During the Census Bureau’s survey period, the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. was on a downward trend. On the last day of the survey, February 7, new cases were 255,000, and recently they have further decreased to 147,000.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) stated, "This survey result indicates that the labor market is recovering from the Omicron variant and that people are learning to coexist with COVID-19."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.