New unemployment numbers released Thursday morning by the U.S. Department of Labor show more than 1.8 million Americans joined the ranks of the unemployed over the last week.
While more than 41 million workers have filed jobless claims since the coronavirus pandemic began impacting the U.S. economy, the number of weekly jobless has declined over the last several weeks.
Just over 2 million Americans filed for unemployment the week before last.
On Friday, the department will release the official unemployment rate for May, which some experts believe will be as high as 20%.
April’s unemployment rate was 14.7%, the highest since the Great Depression.
The total number of people who are now receiving jobless aid rose only slightly to 21.5 million, suggesting that rehiring is offsetting some of the ongoing layoffs.
Though applications for benefits are slowing, the latest weekly number is still more than double the record high that prevailed before the viral outbreak. It shows that there are limits to how much a partial reopening of the economy can restore a depressed job market mired in a recession.
With all states in the process of gradually reopening for business, more consumers are starting to return to restaurants, stores and hair salons. That trend has boosted consumer spending from exceedingly low levels and has likely encouraged some companies to hire again.
In addition to the laid-off employees who applied for benefits last week, 623,000 others sought jobless aid under a new program for self-employed and gig workers, who now qualify for unemployment benefits for the first time. These figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal variations, so the government doesn’t include them in the overall data.
Since mid-March, 42.7 million people have applied for unemployment benefits. Not all of them are still unemployed, though. Some have since been rehired. And some laid-off people, it turns out, filed duplicate applications for benefits as they struggled with unresponsive state unemployment systems.
Thursday’s report wasn’t affected by the protests over the killing of George Floyd, which in recent days forced some major retailers and small businesses to close, because it covers claims filed only through May 30. But some economists warn that applications for unemployment aid could rise in next week’s report, reflecting business closures amid the protests and scattered vandalism.
The depth of the job cuts since the virus forced the widespread shutdown of businesses reflects an economy gripped by the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The economy is thought to be shrinking in the April-June quarter at an annual rate approaching 40%. That would be, by far, the worst quarterly contraction on record.
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