Delta put the brakes on job creation in August, with hospitality flat after months of growth

Daily Kos Staff

Friday September 03, 2021 · 8:10 AM PDT

2021/09/03 · 08:10

An employee at a Cafe and Bakery wears a facemask in Los Angeles, California on March 17, 2020 as the coronavirus (covid-19) epidemic leads to restaurant and school closures as workers work from home in an effort to encourage distancing. - The White House has suggested gatherings limited to 10 people or less as the number of coronavirus cases across the country passes 5,000 with 100 dead. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

A disappointing 235,000 jobs were created in August, according to the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report, even as strong June and July numbers were revised upward by a combined 134,000. Average monthly jobs growth so far in 2021 is 586,000.

Today’s jobs report showed the economy added 235,000 jobs in August, an average gain of 750,000 over the last three months. 1/ pic.twitter.com/5BcAYw9TaB
— Council of Economic Advisers (@WhiteHouseCEA) September 3, 2021

Friday’s report shows the toll the delta variant of the coronavirus is taking on the economy, in particular in leisure and hospitality. After driving jobs gains for months, adding 2.1 million jobs between February and July, there were no gains in the industry in August, and wage growth slowed, the Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz noted. And once again, despite all the Republican yelling about people not wanting to work, the key problem is consumers not feeling safe. “With COVID cases having spiked this summer, Americans have been buying fewer plane tickets and reducing hotel stays,” the AP reports. “Restaurant dining, after having fully recovered in late June, has declined to about 10% below pre-pandemic levels.”

“The proportion of Americans with jobs or searching for one was flat in August,” the AP points out, providing still more evidence that Republican governors’ cutoffs of added federal unemployment benefits didn’t boost job-searching in those states. This isn’t the first indication of that: Previous data also showed the Republican moves didn’t do what they claimed. They did cause pain, though, which is what Republicans really intended all along.

State and local governments are another problem spot in the economy, having lost 815,000 jobs since February 2020, about half in education, EPI’s Elise Gould wrote. Additionally:

The rise in Black unemployment in August is certainly troubling, considering their unemployment rates were already much higher than any other group. Black men's unemployment hit 9.1% in August while white men are now down to 4.4%, lower than Black men's unemployment ever. pic.twitter.com/OQLfNmjV4P
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) September 3, 2021

We knew that delta was bad news. The August jobs report shows that its effects have spread through the economy just as they’ve spread through crowded hospitals. As usual, the pain isn’t equally distributed, with vulnerable people taking an extra hard hit.

Delta put the brakes on job creation in August, with hospitality flat after months of growth

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