The US economy has never destroyed so many jobs in such a short time. The Covid-19 crisis brought the unemployment rate, in two months, from its lowest level in 50 years to a level worthy of the crisis of the 1930s. 20.5 million jobs were thus created were removed in April, a record level in such a short time.
In comparison, 8.6 million jobs were lost during the two years of the 2008 global financial crisis. The unemployment rate, which proudly stood at 3.5% in February, jumped to 14.7 %, its highest level since June 1940. At the heart of the Great Recession of 2009, the unemployment rate was 10.1%.
These staggering figures, however, are less worse than expected, since analysts expected 16 to 20% unemployment, and 28 million jobs lost. “Employment fell sharply in all major sectors, with particularly large losses in leisure and hospitality”, said the labor department Friday, May 8 in a press release. The number of unemployed people increased from 15.9 million to 23.1 million. The number of people who work part-time for economic reasons has almost doubled to 10.9 million.
These figures are ” without surprise “ and were “Expected”, President Donald Trump reacted on Fox News. In the campaign for a second term in the White House, the Republican had made the good health of the American economy one of his main campaign arguments.
33.5 million unemployed since the start of the crisis
April is the first month to reflect the extent of the Covid-19 crisis on the world’s largest economy. The sudden economic downturn from mid-March killed 33.5 million people.
But last month, the unemployment rate was only 4.4%, as is the situation on 12e day of each month that is taken into account for the calculation, that is to say before the implementation of the massive containment measures, which were gradually extended in the country during the second half of March.
Restaurants, cafes, shops, had to close their doors, as did schools. The housekeepers and babysitters were thanked. Taxis and other drivers suddenly had no passengers to carry.
The unemployed new registrants have been in the millions for seven weeks now, compared to 200,000 to 250,000 new weekly registrations before the crisis. They were again more than 3 million, between April 26 and May 2, to have pointed to unemployment for the first time, according to figures released Thursday by the labor department. The peak was reached at the end of March, with 6.8 million new unemployed in one week. Since then, the decline has been very slow.
Record unemployment benefit
The Trump administration and Congress have released a total of $ 669 billion in loans to small and medium businesses to help pay the wages of their employees.
Unemployment rights have also been temporarily extended to people who previously could not claim them, such as the self-employed. And the country is now compensating more unemployed people than ever, 22.6 million people in the last week of April, when they were around 1.7 million before the pandemic.
The United States’ gross domestic product (GDP) fell 4.8% in the first quarter, the largest decline since the fourth quarter of 2008, when the United States plunged into the economic crisis.
The Covid-19 has killed more than 75,000 people in the United States, and affected 1.2 million people, according to the Johns-Hopkins University count.
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