U.S. employers added 916,000 jobs in March, most since August

Month’s gain is nearly double February’s; many jobs still lost

WASHINGTON — America’s employers unleashed a burst of hiring in March, adding 916,000 jobs in a sign that a sustained recovery from the pandemic recession is taking hold as vaccinations accelerate, stimulus checks flow through the economy and businesses increasingly reopen.

The March increase — the most since August — was nearly double February’s gain of 468,000, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate declined from 6.2 percent to 6 percent.

Even with last month’s robust increase, the economy remains more than 8 million jobs short of the number it had before the pandemic erupted a little over a year ago. But with the recovery widely expected to strengthen, many forecasters predict enough hiring in the coming months to recover nearly all those lost jobs by year’s end.

Regaining all those jobs, though, will be a daunting task.

“We can rejoice in these numbers, but we still have a lot of work to do,” said Jane Oates, president of Working nation and a former Labor Department official. “There are millions of workers we need to get back into jobs.”

Speaking after the government issued the jobs report, President

Joe Biden said it showed that his

$1.9 trillion financial rescue package — which included $1,400 checks to many adults — was already boosting the economy. Biden argued, though, that further assistance in the form of the infrastructure package his administration unveiled this week was needed to sustain the gains.

“The fight’s far from over,” the president said in televised remarks. “The progress we’ve worked so hard to achieve can be reversed.”

Republican lawmakers have pointed to the burgeoning economy as evidence that further government support isn’t needed.

Last month, hiring strengthened across the economy. Restaurants, hotels and bars — the sector most damaged by the virus — added 216,000 jobs. Construction companies, aided by better weather after severe storms in February, gained 110,000.

Manufacturers added 53,000. And professional and business services, which include such well-paying fields as engineering and architecture, gained 66,000.