Millions of Americans are unemployed — and desperately seeking work that just isn't there.
What they're saying: "There aren’t enough jobs to go around," says Tara Sinclair, a senior fellow at the Indeed Hiring Lab. "It’s like playing musical chairs, and we’ve taken a whole lot of chairs out of the circle at once."
Jobs are coming back in some industries, but the pandemic continues to hurt others — turning many temporary layoffs into permanent job losses.
The sectors driving the recovery...
- Jobs in trucking, warehousing and e-commerce, which support the stay-at-home economy, have been relatively strong, says Jed Kolko, chief economist at Indeed.
- "Construction is doing well, too, as people are looking for new homes or to improve their current one," he says.
...and the sectors continuing to struggle:
- The hospitality and tourism industries as well as retail and restaurants are suffering most as the pandemic drags on. Arts, entertainment and sports, which rely on large, in-person gatherings, are also in trouble.
Trouble at the top: Tech and finance jobs aren't immune to the coronavirus either. "These higher-wage sectors might be slower to recover because they base their hiring decisions on where they expect the economy to be longer-term," Kolko tells Axios.
- Final-year MBA students, who are usually drowning in offers by the fall, are looking at a bleak jobs landscape as many of the big consulting firms freeze hiring, reports Patrick Thomas in the Wall Street Journal.