February 2021 Economic Report

FINALLY, the U.S. economy is showing some bright spots of recovery. Last month, there were 379,000 jobs added, more than economists expected. Some of the best news is that the leisure and hospitality industries that have suffered the most added the most jobs in February, with 355,000 positions added back after some states began relaxing COVID-19 safety requirements. 

Amtec Tip of the Month

Understanding how employees think about making a move is important when planning how to make your employees want to stay. Based on an Indeed survey, here’s a synopsis of suggested strategies for increasing employee retention:

• Offer competitive salaries and benefits: Stay on top of your industry’s current wages and benefits to hang onto your best employees. Offering competitive compensation will also attract top candidates for newly opened positions.
• Develop programs focused on skill-building: Set up structured, achievable career advancement pathways. Provide programs and mentoring opportunities to help employees develop the skills they’ll need to move vertically within your company.
• Cultivate a supportive corporate culture: Starting at the top, incorporate changes to create a supportive, inclusive company culture. To be effective, these changes must be incorporated into the company’s hiring and personnel management programs.
• Recognize achievement: Employees want their achievements to be tangibly rewarded, whether it’s by compensation or promotions. But there are other ways to recognize accomplishments (read Rewards and Recognitions for more ideas).

You can read more about how to make your employees want to stay here.

Additional Information

If you’re unable to view our February 2021 Economic Report or would like additional information, read below:

• The unemployment rate dropped from 6.3% to 6.2% and the number of unemployed persons dropped from 10.1 million to 10 million in February.

• Total employment increased by 379,000 in February after adding 166,000 in January.

• Leisure and hospitality added 355,000 jobs.
• Professional and business services added 63,000 jobs.
  • Temporary help services added 53,000 jobs.
• Education and health services added 44,000 jobs.
  • Health care and social assistance added 46,000 jobs.
• Retail trade added 41,100 jobs.
• Manufacturing added 21,000 jobs.
• Other services added 10,000 jobs.
• Transportation and warehousing added 4,400 jobs.
• Wholesale trade added 3,600 jobs.
• Utilities lost 400 jobs.
• Information lost 3,000 jobs.
• Financial activities lost 5,000 jobs.
• Mining and logging lost 8,000 jobs.
• Construction lost 61,000 jobs.
• The government lost 86,000 jobs.
  • Government education lost 69,000 jobs.

• Average hourly earnings for all employees rose by 7¢ to $30.01.

Note: Data below represents changes from different months.

• Job openings rose 1.13% in December to 6.6 million openings.

• Dow Jones rose 2.9% in February with a high of 32,000.86 points and a low of 30,054.73 points.

• Housing starts dropped by 5.9% to 1.58 million in January.

• Consumer price index rose by 0.3% in January.

• The federal prime rate remained at 3.25% in February 2021 after dropping from 4.25% in March 2020.

• Retail inventories rose 1.2% in December to $624 billion.

• Manufacturing hours dropped to at an average of 40.2 hours in February.

• Manufacturing new orders rose by 2.6% to $509 billion in January.

The information for this report was developed using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, Yahoo Finance, and FedPrimeRate.com.