COVID-19 Adds 4.4 Million Unemployed in the US... 26 Million Over 5 Weeks

16% of US Workforce Laid Off
Unemployment Rate Expected to Reach 20%
Some Say Peak Has Passed

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] The number of unemployed people in the United States due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) crisis has reached 26 million.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced on the 23rd (local time) that the number of new unemployment insurance claims last week (April 12-18) was 4.43 million. This was 100,000 more than the Dow Jones estimate of 4.3 million but less than the Bloomberg News estimate of 4.5 million.

Although the number of claims has decreased for three consecutive weeks, the surge in unemployment continues. Five weeks after the mass unemployment caused by COVID-19 began, the number of new unemployed people in the U.S. reached 26.5 million. This corresponds to about 16% of the entire U.S. workforce.

There are also opinions that not all new unemployed are reflected in the statistics. According to The New York Times, in New York State, where the COVID-19 crisis is most severe, a large number of unemployment benefit applicants have flooded in, preventing normal processing of applications.

Bloomberg News evaluated that if all unemployment insurance claimants are considered unemployed, the U.S. unemployment rate in April would be about 20%. The U.S. unemployment rate rose from 3.5% in February to 4.4% in March, an increase of 0.9 percentage points.

However, after 6.87 million claims in the fourth week of March, the number of new unemployed has decreased by more than 2 million over two weeks, raising hopes that the worst unemployment crisis has passed its peak.

Economic reopening movements have begun mainly in some states such as Georgia, which could be a variable predicting further decreases in new unemployment numbers. As the spread of COVID-19 slows down, protests demanding the resumption of economic activities continue.