More than 5.2m Americans filed new claims for unemployment insurance last week, pushing the total in one month to more than 22m, in the latest sign of the staggering job losses from the coronavirus shutdowns.
The jobless figures follow a series of data this week that documented the magnitude of the blow from the public health crisis to all parts of the economy, with historical declines in industrial production and retail sales, and local business owners telling the Federal Reserve that economic activity had contracted “sharply and abruptly across all regions in the United States.”
The initial jobless claims total of 5.25m in the week ended April 11 was lower than the 6.62m recorded the previous week, the labour department said on Thursday. That compared with economists' expectations for 5.5m.