Nearly 3 million more Americans have filed for weekly unemployment claims, the Labor Department said on Thursday, bringing the total number of US job losses from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to around 36 million
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th May, 2020) Nearly 3 million more Americans have filed for weekly unemployment claims, the Labor Department said on Thursday, bringing the total number of US job losses from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to around 36 million.
"In the week ending May 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 2,981,000," the department said in a news release, showing that the pace of job losses had, however, declined from the previous week's 3.17 million filings.
The Labor Department had previously released data showing around 33 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits in the seven previous weeks as most non-essential businesses in the United States were shuttered to limit the spread of the virus.
The US economy shrank 4.8 percent in the first three months of 2020 for the sharpest economic decline since the Great Recession of 2008-09. While nearly all 50 states in America have begun reopening their economies one way or another over the past two weeks, economists still warn of sharp recession by the second quarter, meaning more job losses to come.
With the latest jobless claims filings, the US unemployment was at 15.7 percent, up 0.3 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate, the Labor Department said.
The largest increases in initial jobless claims for the week ending May 9 were in the oil-producing state of Oklahoma, which had 41,385 more filings than the previous week due to layoffs triggered by the crash in US crude oil prices as demand for fuel plunged as a result of the pandemic.
