In July, the U.S. economy added 528,000 jobs, more than double the number economists had predicted.
This huge increase in employment is a major milestone for the U.S. economy: Pre-pandemic employment is now fully restored.
In February 2020, the last month before the COVID 19 pandemic tipped the U.S. economy into recession, 152.504 million people were employed in the U.S.
There were 152.536 million people in the U.S. working as of July 2022.
The bounce back marks the second-fastest job market recovery since 1981, despite the labor market contraction during the epidemic being the sharpest in modern history.
We've seen job losses that topped 20 million at one point completely erased over the past two years.
This recovery is in stark contrast to the malaise we saw in the labor market after the financial crisis, when it took the better part of a decade for pre-crisis employment levels to be restored.
The labor market is recovering well, despite the Federal ReserveFederal Reserve raising interest rates to tamp down inflation, which continues to run at 40 year highs.
Most economists had been expecting Friday's jobs report to show a moderate increase in hiring, especially since some labor market indicators pointed to a slowdown. High-profile cuts from the tech sector have also been seen as a proverbial canary in the coal mine for the broader economy.
The unexpected acceleration in non-farm payroll growth in July, along with the further decline in the unemployment rate and the renewed pick-up in wage pressure, make a mockery of claims that the economy is on the brink of recession, Michael Pearce, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note following Friday's report.
Pearce believes that the Fed will raise interest rates by 0.75% at its September meeting. The central bank raised rates by this magnitude for the third time in a row.
Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro, stated in an email that the July employment report was an absolute knock-out, an upside surprise relative to my expectations and even a lot of the labor market data. The jobs report is consistent with an inflationary boom. The Fed has a lot of work to do and in an odd way, the Fed needs to get more aggressive in pushing up rates, which makes the hard-landing scenario more likely.