Gad Levanon, vice president for labor markets at the Conference Board, believes that now is a pretty good time to look for work despite the pandemic, writes Peter Coy for Bloomberg.

According to Levanon, the high unemployment rate nationwide which was 7.9 percent in September, overstates the trouble for workers.

Many of the people counted in that percentage are not aggressively looking for a new job because they believe they will be going to their old positions once the pandemic eases up. For example, last month, 36.7 percent of jobless people reported they are on a temporary layoff.

This means that the chances of landing a new job are higher for those who are actively looking right now as they do not have to compete for work with those who are pretty confident they will be called back by their old employers.

Additionally, expanded federal unemployment benefits have provided two-thirds of people who lost their jobs with a higher income than they had before. Some of them might still be living off that money which may be slowing down their job-searching efforts.

Read more about the state of the job market at Bloomberg by clicking here.

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