Hard hit by the pandemic, the accommodation and food services industry—which includes high-contact businesses like drinking places, full-service restaurants, resorts, and motels—lost 6.9 million jobs during the first months of the pandemic. The industry remains 2.2 million jobs below its pre-pandemic peak in February 2020, even after having accounted for nearly all of last month’s gain of 266,000 jobs. Many businesses have reported trouble finding workers, and economists have said that expanded federal unemployment insurance benefits, anxieties about the pandemic, an inability to find childcare, or workers holding out for better wages or even reconsidering their career choices may be behind the shortage. In total, there were 8.1 million job openings in the U.S. as of the last day of March, the most since the government began keeping tally in December 2000. There are 9.8 million people unemployed in the U.S.
