The U.S. shed 140,000 jobs in December as a resurgence of the coronavirus ended seven months of job growth and weakened the recovery.
Restaurants and bars drove the decline by cutting 372,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The broader category of hospitality and leisure industries—which adds hotels, museums, tourist sites—also saw losses, while schools and governments cut jobs as the pandemic triggered new restrictions on activity.
Jobs gains in most other industries weren’t enough to offset the sharp decline in areas sensitive to the state of the pandemic.
The U.S. jobless rate held steady at 6.7%, far below its April peak of 14.8% but still almost twice its pre-pandemic level.
“The labor market ended the year on a sour note,” Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, said in a note to clients.
