Key takeaways:<\/p>\n
After one of the most difficult years in generations \u2014 from both a health and economic standpoint \u2014 there is a light at the end of the tunnel. At one point, more than 40 million Americans were out of a job. Fortunately, in recent months, that number has fallen to 6.7% \u2014 or around 10 million \u2014 although there\u2019s still a long way to go. And, while hiring and rehiring is progressing, it\u2019s not doing so evenly across the country. In fact, some states are already back to their pre-pandemic levels of employment, while one actually has an even lower unemployment rate than it did before the pandemic.<\/p>\n
For this report, we looked at data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) comparing pre-pandemic lows of unemployment in February 2020 to rates in December of the same year. We also looked into how jobs have bounced back from the high unemployment experienced in April 2020.<\/p>\n