Millions of American jobs lost during the coronavirus pandemic could take years to return, according to new projections released by the Internal Revenue Service, underscoring the depth of the damage inflicted by the crisis on the nation's labor market.The IRS forecasts there will be about 229.3 million employee-classified jobs in the U.S.
in 2021 — a drop of roughly 38.9 million from the previous year, before the virus hit, the projections show. The data is an estimate of how many W-2 tax forms the agency expects to receive that year.The damage inflicted to the jobs market is expected to persist for years, the data shows, with W-2 filings still nowhere close to their pre-pandemic levels even in 2028.