AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. unemployment rate fell sharply in August to 8.4% from 10.2% even as hiring slowed in August as employers added the fewest jobs since the pandemic began.
Employers added 1.4 million jobs, the Labor Department said Friday, down from 1.7 million in July. The U.S. economy has recovered about half the 22 million jobs lost to the pandemic.
The United States keeps regaining more of the jobs that vanished when the viral pandemic flattened the economy early this spring.
Yet so deep were the layoffs that began in March that millions of Americans remain burdened by job losses that might prove permanent.
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