One Year After The First Wave Of Pandemic Jobs Losses, U.S. Adds Nearly A Million Jobs In March

US Census data shows that small businesses in Texas are actually adding employees at a higher rate than they are losing them for the first time since the pandemic, so entrepreneur-friendly communities like ours look to be trending in the right direction.

A year after the devastating first wave of pandemic-related job losses came to light, the U.S. added 916,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department said.

It’s an encouraging sign on the anniversary of what was an especially distressing week for the workforce. Weekly jobless claims surged to a staggering 6.65 million for the week ending March 28, 2020. At the time, it was the highest level ever recorded. That month, the U.S. economy lost a total of 701,000 jobs in the first payroll decline since 2010.

This March, the unemployment rate fell slightly to 6%—down from 6.2% in February. It’s a stark difference from the unemployment rate a year ago at a shocking 14.7% in April 2020, the highest it had been since the Great Depression. February marked the first time since March 2020 that all 50 states and the District of Columbia had unemployment rates under 10%, according to the Labor Department.

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