President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks on America’s Energy Dominance and Manufacturing Revival Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019, at the Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex in Monaca, Pa. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
The embers of the blazing Trump economy of 2019 are still burning, despite the COVID-19 adversity they face. As evidence of the strong foundation the president has built for America’s economy, job openings are now almost back to pre-coronavirus panic levels. The WSJ’s Gwynn Guilford reports:
The number of job openings in the U.S. has climbed since the spring and is now nearly back to the levels before the coronavirus pandemic hit the labor market, a sign of continued economic improvement despite a surge in infections and fading fiscal support.
There were 10.8 million job openings posted on online sites across the U.S. so far this month, on average, up from 6 million at the low point in May, after the pandemic triggered widespread business closures and other restrictions on activity, according to data from job-search site ZipRecruiter.
The current total is less than 2% below the February average, compared with a 46% gap in May.
The return of this measure of labor-market activity to pre-pandemic levels suggests that the recovery is continuing amid numerous headwinds, said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter.
“The numbers are astonishingly good given waning fiscal support, given all the terrible news on [virus] case counts,” she said. “There are all kinds of headwinds and yet the economy keeps hiring and adding jobs and recalling furloughed employees and that’s really quite encouraging.”
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