Increases in unemployment are expected to continue in the United States through the second quarter of 2020, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Thursday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th April, 2020) Increases in unemployment are expected to continue in the United States through the second quarter of 2020, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the US Labor Department reported that an additional 6.6 million Americans filed for jobless claims last week as a result of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
"We do expect to see a very low economic output and big increases in initial claims for unemployment and in unemployment during the second quarter," Powell told a video conference hosted by the Brookings Institution think-tank. "I would say generally my expectation is that the second quarter will be a very weak one and that's because businesses are shut down and workers are either working from home or they're furloughed or laid off [as] the businesses that they work at is closed for the time being."
With last week's 6.6 million new jobless claims, US unemployment stood at a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.1 percent for the week ending March 28, an increase of 3 percentage points from the previous week's unrevised rate, the Labor Department said.
In the two weeks prior, the Labor Department reported jobless claims of 7.5 million and 3.1 million, respectively.
In the six-month period prior to the economic shutdown, nonfarm payroll growth had averaged 221,000 a month. However, March saw a decline of 701,000 that began to measure how deeply the pandemic had impacted employment.
