U.S. employers added 4.8 million jobs in June, and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1 percent amid reopening efforts, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Thursday.
The unemployment rate previously soared to a record 14.7 percent in April, as COVID-19 ravaged the economy. It declined slightly to 13.3 percent, as businesses gradually reopen across the country.
"These gains reflect a partial resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus pandemic in April and March, when employment fell by a total of 22.2 million in the 2 months combined," the BLS report said.
The BLS report showed that the labor force participation rate increased by 0.7 percentage point in June to 61.5 percent, but is 1.9 percentage points below its February level.
Noting that the official data counts an extra 2.0 million people who were "not at work for other reasons" as employed, and also that 4.6 million people have left the labor force since February, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) senior fellow and Harvard professor Jason Furman, and Harvard Kennedy School research associate Wilson Powell, wrote in an analysis that the "realistic unemployment rate" was 13.0 percent in June.
Despite the rebound, Jay H. Bryson, acting chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities, said these gains likely won't be repeated in the next few months due to the recent re-acceleration in COVID-19 cases.
"With the number of COVID-19 cases accelerating and some states delaying re-opening or imposing new restrictions, we are concerned that a significant number of individuals may become furloughed again," Bryson wrote in a note.
