US economy healthy, unemployment could stay high for years: Powell

The underlying US economy remains solid, but high unemployment could persist for years in the sectors most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday.

"There's is still a healthy economy under here, except for this area that's been directly affected by COVID," Powell said in a discussion as part of the Jackson Hole central banking conference.

But millions of workers in travel, hotels and restaurants have been directly impacted, which means "a couple of years of... relatively high unemployment."

People in those industries are "really going to struggle to find work... We need to support them."