Labor Sec. Scalia: COVID Surge Still Leaves Room for People to Work

There is still room to put people back to work, even though some businesses such as restaurants are being closed again because of the large coronavirus numbers being seen in several states, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said Monday. 

"Obviously we're watching the increase in cases and that's something that we need to be attentive to and careful about," Scalia told Fox Business' "Mornings With Maria." "That's why we're reminding people that the virus is still there. Social distancing remains important, masks in many circumstances are needed. And we need to get those numbers back down and we do see some locales and states pausing."

However, there are some sectors in which jobs are coming back, Scalia said. 

"We lost more than 1.5 million jobs in healthcare," Scalia said. "We put a lot back now. I think we put about 360,000 jobs back in June. But we still have 900,000 fewer people involved in that sector than we did in February. We can put those people back in the next couple of months, I think."

But Scalia said he thinks "most workplaces are safe" as most people know the steps to take to keep them clean. 

"The employers that I speak to and workplaces I visit, I've never seen U.S. business as focused on health and safety as they are right now – for obvious reasons," Scalia said. "We at the Labor Department have put out a great deal of guidance with the CDC and OSHA on steps to keep workplaces safe. There are of course going to be some businesses that don't take the steps they need when we get those complaints, we are looking into them."

He added, if there are businesses where people are getting too casual on masks, it makes sense for local officials to "take a look at what's going on," especially if there is community spread of COVID-19.

"We do have to be careful," he said. "We do have to be disciplined. We can reopen safely. But it does get harder if people just throw all caution to the wind. We can't do that."

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