Some welcome news on the economic front

We welcome the good news regarding the added jobs in this country, and seeing the beginning of the end of this dark period is heartening, but we must move forward soberly and resolutely as these are profoundly uncertain times.

Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employers in the U.S. added 4.8 million jobs to the economy in June, bringing the unemployment rate to 11.1%. For two months in a row, the economic engine in America revved more loudly than expected.

As the Associated Press reports, the nation has now recovered roughly one-third of the 22 million jobs it lost to the pandemic recession.

Yes, that is very good news but it is far too early to celebrate. COVID-19 cases are increasing sharply in some states and that is causing governors to stall or recede into peak-pandemic lockdown measures. Obviously, the result could be another blow to regional economies.

Uncertainty is a hindrance to hiring and overall growth to industries, generally. Hiring freezes and delayed initiatives are standard operating procedures for the business community and are bound to have a deflating effect on our overall economic environment.

Nineteen million people are receiving jobless aid at this moment and the number of Americans seeking new unemployment benefits has virtually plateaued at 1.47 million last week. Those are not encouraging numbers.

By all indications, Americans are ready to get back to work and restart their businesses as well as their lives, but the coronavirus continues to be an unwelcome obstruction.

In California, bars have been closed down once again, as well as theaters and restaurants. Similarly, Florida has shut off beaches and bars to the public, and Texas and New York have likewise taken precautions in the wake of the COVID-19 resurgence.

Kronos, which produces timemanagement software, has found that in the past two weeks, growth in the number of shifts worked has slowed in the Southeast and is now rising at just half the rate of the Northeast, the Associated Press reports.

“The pace of recovery is starting to slow,” said Dave Gilbertson, an executive at Kronos. “We are expecting to see more of a plateauing over the next couple of months.”

Some retailers have paused reopening efforts nationwide and others have reclosed.

It is possible that this is a hiccup and the good employment news is part of a much larger rebounding economy. Manufacturing and housing data are showing a positive trend and that can often be a favorable bellwether.

In other good news, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer reported positive results this week in an early trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

An overarching challenge facing us, apart from the existential deadliness of the virus, is that there is so much unknown about COVID-19. Americans have been fed mountains of confusing and sometimes contradictory information.

Is the death rate low? No and yes.

Are we safer outdoors? Yes but no.

All of this leads to not only widespread anxiety, but general instability and that is a prohibitive bane to the business community and thus the economy.

Let us be smart, sober and stalwart in our resolve to proactively weather this pandemic storm and equally so in our necessary endeavor to restart the economy and our lives.

For today, we’ve got a little good news, and in 2020 we take it one day at a time.