Coronavirus outbreak continues to impact the number of initial jobless claims in the U.S. Nearly every state providing comments cited the COVID-19 virus. States continued to identify increases related to the services industries broadly, again led by accommodation and food services. However, state comments indicated a wider impact across other industries. Many states continued to cite the health care and social assistance, and manufacturing industries, while an increasing number of states identified the retail and wholesale trade and construction industries.
According to the Department of Labor (DOL)In the week ending March 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 6,648,000, which is an increase of around 3,341,000 from the previous week’s numbers. This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series.
To put the numbers in perspective, the size of the U.S. workforce is estimated to about 164M, so about 4% of the workforce made initial jobless claim application last week, after 2% did so the prior week.
The weird thing about the latest report is that U.S. stock markets are in green as of today. Markets are rewarding corporations. Companies accross the U.S. are now sending furlough and layoff notices to people, in a month they will get the bailout money, than they do shares buybacks, and the Execs will get their bonuses. It’s a win scheme. Not a win-win though because an average citizen will only get $1,200 checks. People without sufficient funds to survive these months without a job should have prepared themselves earlier.. Companies certainly didn’t, but they do have an option B. Stimulus bill.
