Joe Biden hails January job report as US COVID affected economy recovers

US President Joe Biden on
Friday said that the January jobs report was significantly better than what
economists had predicted in view of the surge in COVID-19 cases.

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“Our country is taking
everything that COVID has to throw at us and we’ve come back stronger,”
Biden said, speaking from the White House.

The US reported 467,000 jobs
last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The change in trend
also showed that the winter jobs gains were much stronger than initially
predicted. But the unemployment rate last month inched up from 3.9% to 4%,
which is the first increase in the jobless rate since June 2021.

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The latest report came as a
much respite to the Biden administration which has been struggling to combat
inflation. Global supply chain issues and worker shortages are also affecting
the US economy’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, and economic anxiety
among the American public is causing Biden’s approval rating to take a hit.

Friday’s job report showed
the US economy added 6.6 million jobs during Biden’s first 12 months at the
Oval Office, making it by far the best-ever first year for a president.

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“History has been made
here,” Biden said. He touted the “historic economic progress,”
the country has seen under his administration and credited his economic
policies. He praised the Democrats’ Covid-19 emergency relief bill and the
bipartisan infrastructure law as essential to the nation’s recovery.

Restaurants and bars, which
have been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, added more than 100,000 jobs in
January. Logistics and business services jobs also ticked up.

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The head of a leading
restaurant industry group said the recovery is still incomplete.

“When people working in
leisure and hospitality are more than twice as likely to be unemployed, it’s
hard to argue the economy is thriving,” said Erika Polmar, executive
director of the Independent Restaurant Coalition.