3 See Robert W. Fairlie (2020), “The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: Evidence of EarlyStage Losses from the April 2020 Current Population Survey,” NBER Working Paper Series 27309 (Cambridge, Mass. : National Bureau of Economic Research, June), https://www.nber.org/papers/w27309.pdf. 2  -4improvements are likely behind us.
The pace of labor market improvement is decelerating at a time when employment is still far short of its maximum level. As of September, total nonfarm payroll employment had recovered about half of the jobs that were lost in March and April, and it remained about 11 million jobs below its February level.