The June jobs report surprised to the upside Thursday when it showed the US added 4.8 million jobs, more than economists expected, and the unemployment rate declined to 11.1% during the month.
The report shows that people are indeed going back to work as the US slowly reopens its economy from the sweeping lockdowns imposed mid-March to curb the spread of COVID-19. Jobs were added in almost every industry, with the biggest gains seen in leisure and hospitality, which has been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
Still, economists note that because the pandemic has moved so fast, the jobs report is already out of date. First, the reference period for the report only goes through June 12, and thus doesn't capture the second half of the month when many states began to see new spikes in coronavirus cases.
In the last two weeks of the month, the surge in new virus cases led to more than 19 states and cities rolling back or pausing reopening plans.
In addition, the US is still grappling with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and was officially declared in a recession in February. While any progress or recovery in the labor market is good, economists still caution that there's a long way to go — even with June's job gains, the US is still down about 15 million jobs since the beginning of the pandemic.
"We are still in a deep economic hole," Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, told Business Insider. "Any improvement is good, but we still have a long way to go before we can return to pre-crisis levels and make up for lost economic ground."
Here's what five economists and strategists had to say about Thursday's June jobs report.