(Bloomberg) -- It's taken 2 1/2 years but US employment is finally above its pre-pandemic level.
A 315,000 gain in August payrolls from a month earlier pushed total employment to 152.744 million. That's some 240,000 jobs more than in February 2020, when Covid-19 walloped the economy and threw the labor market into a tailspin, Labor Department data showed Friday.
By industry, professional and business services has seen the largest employment growth -- up more than one million since February 2020. Transportation and warehousing payrolls have increased nearly 750,000.
High-paying sectors such as information and finance have also witnessed robust gains.
Leisure and hospitality jobs, however, remain well below pre-pandemic levels. The health crisis may have led to some structural changes for labor in that sector. One example is many hotels have eliminated daily room cleaning that reduces the need for as many housekeepers.
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