Many Michiganders still have not returned to work
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ALPENA -- Michigan's job market has nearly fully recovered from the coronavirus pandemic, but many Michiganders still haven't returned to work, the state said Thursday.
Across the state, employers added about 15,000 jobs in February, the Michigan Department of Technology, Management, and Budget said in a news release Thursday. That helped the state maintain a low 4.3% unemployment rate and brought the state within 0.7% of pre-pandemic job offerings.
The biggest job gains since February 2022 came in government and the leisure and hospitality industry, DTMB said.
Many jobs also paid more. Year-over-year, average weekly earnings in the manufacturing sector were up 6.1%, for example, DTMB said.
"Michigan's labor market was stable in February," Wayne Rourke, labor market information director of Michigan's Center for Data and Analytics, said in a statement. "Payroll jobs rose for the fourth consecutive month."
However, the labor force participation rate -- a measure of the working-age population either working or looking for work -- remained below pre-pandemic levels.
Michigan's February labor force participation rate was 59.8%, compared to 61.3% before the pandemic, DTMB said in its news release.
That equals thousands of Michiganders who could work but are not.
Employers and economic experts say many factors contribute to people not returning to work, including a lack of affordable child care and the inability of applicants to pass drug tests.