In all, the government's benchmark monthly nonfarm payrolls report out Friday showed that by several metrics - including the total number of unemployed dropping below 6 million and a 3.6% unemployment rate - the U.S. job market had all but recovered from the devastating hit delivered in the first two months of the pandemic when 22 million people were thrown out of work.
* The broadest measure of unemployment also capturing those marginally attached to the workforce or working part time for economic reasons fell to 6.9%, below February 2020's level and a fraction from a record low. Just 874,000 people were reported to have not sought work in the previous four weeks because of COVID-19, down from 1.23 million in February and 1.81 million in January when the Omicron variant drove U.S. infections to a record.
"People feel more comfortable going back to work," Walsh said. "More people shopping. Hospitality and leisure are really benefiting."And just 10% of those people with a job said they either teleworked or worked from home because of COVID-19, a figure representing about 15.8 million workers. That is also a pandemic-era low and is roughly a third of the number reporting the need to work remotely in May 2020.