Unemployment Dips to 4.6 percent and 11.6% of Society Teleworking

Delivery Robot

Good news for employment. More people moved back to work as unemployment dipped to 4.6% and  payroll rose by 531,000.  There are still people not working so there is some room for employment situation to change. At present there are 6 million people who want a job but not in the labor force and there is 1.3 million people who are prevented from working because of the pandemic. 

What is interesting is that 11.6% of workers are teleworking. Some of them have returned back to work but that constitutes a different sort of labor market. It is a virtual market where there are different work arrangements and rules that might apply. It also takes different kind of skill. 

The pandemic tested our capacity to move online quickly and some are going to return back to the normal face-to-face way of conducting business. With infrastructure improvements and increased online daily activities more and more of the population will move online thereby shifting the market into a Digital Era. That is thinking more on a long term trend.

We are also likely to find increased use of AI and robotics to deal with labor shortages. Wages should rise and so should tech investment in heavy labor jobs like warehousing, delivery, etc.... The average worker will need different kind of user tech skills that wasn't inherent in jobs of the past (...likely putting pressure on higher education.). Basic jobs will require the ability to deal with technology that includes use of tools and high tech industrial machinery. 

You can read the BLS report yourself HERE.