More than 960,000 people filed new jobless claims last week. It is the first time initial claims dipped below one million since mid-March. However, claims remain historically high compared to pre-pandemic levels of about 200,000 a week.

The U.S. economy has lost more than 20 million jobs since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the current unemployment rate is 10.2%. While 1.8 million jobs were added in July, the net loss of jobs remains high.

CGTN spoke with Thomas Hayes, founder, chairman and managing member of Great Hill Capital, about how COVID-19 is impacting the U.S. job market and how the upcoming presidential election may factor into economic recovery.

He says there's reason for optimism ahead. “So it’s going to take a bit of time, but I certainly see by the end of this year, we’ll be at, you know, high single digits and then it’ll probably take another half a year or two years to get back to pre-pandemic levels on the unemployment rate. And that’s really going to depend on the election,” Hayes said.

“As far as the election goes, one side wants to increase the corporate tax rate, which would slow growth. And the other side wants to reduce taxes even more, which in the short term would help the recovery speed up a bit faster. So the election has a lot to do with how quickly we can get back to pre-pandemic levels on unemployment,” he added.