With the virus transforming consumer spending habits, economists believe some portion of these service jobs won’t return even after the economy has regained its footing.

Factories, while not fully recovered, are cranking out goods and have added jobs every month since May.

But the negative number stemmed entirely from a brutal loss — nearly 500,000 jobs — in a category that includes restaurants, bars, hotels, casinos and entertainment.

Nearly every other industry added jobs.

Job losses have “definitely been very heavily concentrated in certain industries — much more so than prior recessions,” Hershbein said in an interview.

But a big unknown overhangs the 2021 economy: Will the economic recovery come fast enough, and be robust enough, to absorb many of the Americans who lost jobs in the hospitality industries into more resilient sectors of the job market?

For now, the resurgent pandemic has made consumers reluctant to shop, travel, dine out and congregate in crowds and led states and cities to reimpose stricter limits on restaurants and bars.

Hershbein and Holzer’s research found that job losses have been deeper among Black and Hispanic workers than among whites and also more pronounced for those in lower-paying jobs.

Employment among the lowest-paid one quarter of Americans has sunk nearly 12% since February of this year, Hershbein found.

The proportion of white Americans with jobs has fallen 6% since the pandemic; among Black and Hispanic Americans, it’s down 10%, Hershbein said.

She said she fears that many of those jobs likely won’t return even as the pandemic fades as some shifts in the economy become permanent.

Business travel won’t likely return to its previous levels as more meetings are conducted remotely.

That may end a decade-long narrowing of the Black-white unemployment gap, given that many lower-paid jobs are disproportionately held by Black workers.

Before the pandemic, Blew typically played bass guitar in bands at casinos, bars and other venues several nights a week.