US Travel Association Calls on Congress for Additional Industry Relief

While the September jobs report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wasn't as optimistic as expected, there were still bright spots in the economy.

With just 194,000 jobs added to the economy last month, the report missed expectations by a wide margin, and that was true for the leisure and hospitality sectors as well.

Expectations may have been higher but the sector was one of the stronger areas of the economy, leading in job creation along with the professional and business services sector.

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Several crises weighed on jobs, including the delta variant surge as well as Hurricane Ida.

The U.S. Travel Association reacted to the recent report, highlighting the need for Congress to provide further relief to the industry.

“Today’s employment analysis points to an uneven recovery for the critically important Leisure and Hospitality sector, which saw relatively few jobs added in September (just 74,000) compared to earlier months where hundreds of thousands of jobs were recovered," said U.S. Travel Executive Vice President of Public Affairs and Policy Tori Emerson Barnes. "These uneven gains are largely attributed to the virus variant that affected travel at summer’s end.

“There remains a great need for Congress to provide additional federal relief and incentives to sustain travel-dependent businesses until a complete recovery can take hold – which will require the return of business travel as well as international inbound travel," Emerson Barnes said.

Labor shortages still remain a problem for the industry, and the Federal Reserve predicted earlier this year that these shortages could remain for many months.

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