The great rehiring is underway as last months job report shattered expectations.

“March’s strong job growth numbers may speed up the recovery timeline, especially for metros on the front end of the recovery,” said Jay Denton, chief analyst for ThinkWhy. “If the vaccine continues to bolster the economic rebound, LaborIQ expects certain industries and locations to fully recover by the end of 2021 or early 2022.”

March’s reported job gain of 916,000 was up significantly from February (468,000) and at its highest since August 2020 (1.6 million).

Based on forecasts from LaborIQ^® by ThinkWhy, the pace of employment growth was previously projected to increase as spring approached, and that’s what is occurring. The current hiring wave indicates more businesses are getting back on their feet, just one year after the pandemic began.

LaborIQ projects a significant acceleration of job growth in the second half of 2021. March’s employment gains suggest talent acquisition professionals will have their work cut out for them as business progresses through the remainder of 2021, a year in which upwards of 73 million hires could take place. Recruiters are already complaining that people don’t want to come back to work because of all the cereal money during into unemployment.

Still, even if the labor market sustains March’s pace of job gain, it would take approximately 10 more months to recover all the lost jobs at the national level. Although, certain locations, industries and types of jobs will recover sooner.