(Representative image: Reuters)
WASHINGTON: Nearly 3.2 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the business shutdowns caused by the viral outbreak deepened the worst US economic catastrophe in decades.
Roughly 33.5 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the seven weeks since the coronavirus began forcing millions of companies to close their doors and slash their workforces.
That is the equivalent of one in five Americans who had been employed back in February, when the unemployment rate had reached a 50-year low of just 3.5 per cent.
On Friday, the government will issue the April jobs report, and it’s likely to be the worst since modern record-keeping began after World War II.
The unemployment rate is forecast to reach at least 16 per cent, the highest rate since the Great Depression, and economists estimate that 21 million jobs were lost last month.
If so, it would mean that nearly all the job growth in the 11 years since the Great Recession ended has vanished in a single month.
Even those stunning figures won’t fully capture the magnitude of the damage the coronavirus has inflicted on the job market.
Many people who are still employed have had their hours reduced. Others have suffered