Economy

Unemployment Rate Falls Below 8% As U.S. Adds 661,000 New Jobs

U.S. employers added 661,000 jobs last month, but it's still not clear when all the jobs lost to the pandemic will be recovered.

Unemployment Rate Falls Below 8% As U.S. Adds 661,000 New Jobs
Steven Senne / AP
Article by Scripps News Staff
SMS
October 2, 2020

U.S. employers added 661,000 jobs last month, dropping the unemployment rate to 7.9%, according to the Labor Department. But it's the third straight month of slower hiring. 

Slightly more than half of the 22 million jobs wiped out by the pandemic have been recovered so far. But with the start of the new fiscal year, some assistance programs have ended, causing companies to announce major layoffs.