The Nonprofit Work Force Is 7.4 Percent Smaller Than a Year Ago

Nonprofits added an estimated 26,562 jobs in February, with gains seen in almost all causes. But the nonprofit work force remains significantly smaller than it was a year ago, when the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 to be a pandemic, according to a new report from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies.

As of the end of February 2021, the nonprofit work force was about 7.4 percent smaller than it was in February 2020, a loss of more than 926,000 jobs. Arts, entertainment, and recreation nonprofits continue to be affected the most by the pandemic’s disruptions, employing nearly 35 percent fewer workers than in February 2020, representing a loss of roughly 123,590 jobs. Proportionally, health-care nonprofits have fared much better, with employment numbers down 3.7 percent last month compared with February 2020, equivalent to the loss of 251,750 jobs.

Nonprofits cut an estimated 1.6 million jobs in the first months of the pandemic. By June 2020, nearly 24 percent of those jobs had been regained. But hiring among nonprofits has slowed since the end of the summer. Based on the average rate of nonprofit job recovery seen since June, the report’s authors estimate it will take nearly two years for nonprofit employment to return to pre-Covid levels.

Looking at February 2021 alone, social-assistance groups saw the strongest job growth, as its workforce expanded 8.7 percent from January, with an estimated 10,560 jobs added. Educational services was the only cause to see a January-to-February decline in employment, with an estimated 1,700 jobs lost, a drop of less than 1 percent.

The numbers in this report are estimates. To arrive at their figures, the authors used federal employment data to project nonprofit job losses or gains based on the proportion of nonprofit jobs within a given category.