WASHINGTON (AP) - America’s employers unleashed a burst of hiring in March, adding 916,000 jobs in a sign that a sustained recovery from the pandemic recession is taking hold as vaccinations accelerate, stimulus checks flow through the economy and businesses increasingly reopen.The March increase — the most since August — was nearly double February’s gain of 468,000, the Labor Department said Friday.
The unemployment rate declined from 6.2% to 6%.Even with last month’s robust increase, the economy remains more than 8 million jobs short of the number it had before the pandemic erupted a little over a year ago.