VIRAL JOBS CRISIS

Economy’s COV sputter

The US economy added 245,000 jobs in November — barely more than half the number economists expected — as the coronavirus’ resurgence hampered the labor market’s recovery from the pandemic.

The unemployment rate barely dropped to 6.7 percent last month from 6.9 percent in October amid the record-setting spike in infections, which has led to renewed lockdown measures in some parts of the country, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

The figures were another signal that the nation’s economic rebound from the worst downturn since the Great Depression is slowing down at the start of what health officials fear will be a brutal winter, with COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths on the rise.

“These numbers are showing people’s renewed concern about the resurgent virus,” economist A. Gary Shilling told The Post. “Governments are reluctant to close things up but we’ve learned that when we open up, this virus transmits very quickly.”

Last month was the fifth straight in which job growth slowed after peaking at about 4.8 million in June. Economists were anticipating an addition of 469,000 jobs to the nation’s nonfarm payrolls, according to a Reuters survey, down from October’s revised total of 610,000. There’s light at the end of the tunnel: US regulators are expected to clear two COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use this month, a crucial step toward returning the economy to normal.

But experts say Washington needs to slather another layer of ointment on the wounded economy by approving more federal aid.

The virus and its economic fallout will continue to spread in the meantime, according to economists — potentially leading to a net loss of jobs this month.

“The wounds are festering and Congress needs to act,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton and a Federal Reserve adviser, told The Post.

“We’ve been arguing that and this just underscores the point because by December we’ll be in the red.”

While a $908 billion stimulus proposal is gaining traction in Congress, key benefits programs created by March’s CARES Act bill are set to expire at the end of the year, putting jobless Americans on the edge of a financial cliff.

“The task at hand is clear,” Curt Long, chief economist and vice president of research at the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, told The Post. “Let’s get something done, let’s limit the damage, and when a vaccine’s available we won’t have quite as big a mountain to scale.”