It’s been nearly three years since pandemic shutdowns staggered the economy.In just two months, March and April 2020, Massachusetts employers cut 690,000 jobs — nearly one out of five. Unemployment soared to 17 percent from less than 3 percent.There’d been nothing like it, even during the Great Depression. And the aftershocks continue to reverberate across the state, exposing faults in what otherwise seems like a solid job market.Employers added an average of 11,000 jobs a month last year, compared with 4,300 a month in 2019. Yet there were 240,000 open jobs in November, according to the most recent data available. That’s a historically elevated level — the monthly average in the five years before the pandemic was 157,000 openings — that indicates hiring is being held back by a shortage of workers.
Continue reading the article in the Boston Globe (subscription may be required)
No comments:
Post a Comment