Pandemic reshapes US employment, speeding changes across industries

The pandemic and related restrictions shocked the U.S. job market earlier this year, leading to a labor-force reordering as the economy recovered. Jobs have declined at retail stores, restaurants and bars and grown at warehouse and transportation businesses that serve online customers as e-commerce flourishes.

Here is a breakdown of how jobs in various categories of the labor market cumulatively changed from February, just before the pandemic hit the U.S., to November.

Courier and messenger jobs have increased every month since February, growing the sector by more than 20% as of November. Overall employment across industries is down 6.5% from February.

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Warehouse jobs stumbled early, then started growing to exceed pre-pandemic levels.

Rail jobs fell and stagnated, extending a yearslong decline amid fewer shipments of coal and industrial commodities.

Airline employment plunged in the spring when the pandemic disrupted travel, then grew modestly over the summer before falling again in October after federal support expired.

Restaurants and bars lost their place as the largest major employment category tracked by the Labor Department. Reopenings have allowed the industry to recover somewhat, though the latest surge in virus cases could set it back again.

Arts and sports employment came to a halt early in the pandemic, shedding nearly half of the sector’s jobs. Those jobs have started to come back unevenly across the country.

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Professional and technical jobs, which often require college degrees, have experienced a smaller decline as many employees shifted to working from home. As offices closed, the staff who kept them running suffered.

Administrative and support staff—including secretaries, janitors and security guards—saw deeper cuts and have experienced less of a recovery than the one seen in overall employment.

The real-estate sector has largely recovered from spring losses amid a housing boom. In contrast, leasing offices shed more than 20% of jobs and have been slow to add them back.

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Travel-related jobs have been slow to recover. Accommodations jobs fell by 1 million early in the pandemic and have gained back 375,000. Tourism-dependent states such as Hawaii and Nevada have felt the hit more than others.

The New York City region that includes New York, New Jersey and Connecticut was hit hard early in the pandemic. Those states saw some of the highest unemployment rates in November.

Other states such as Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa that didn’t enact as severe restrictions as many coastal states have had more recent Covid-19 surges but among the lowest unemployment rates.