» Layoffs across Texas now exceed Great Recession numbers.
2 million Texans have filed first-time jobless claims since March
More than 130,000 Texans filed first for unemployment benefits last week, marking a significant slowdown in claims from the peak of layoffs in early April, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
Unemployment claims remain elevated — more than 10 times the number filed a year earlier — but the pace of layoffs is slowing both in Texas and nationally as businesses begin to reopen following government-ordered shutdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In Texas, last week’s filings were less than half the 315,000 filed the week ending April 1.
About 2 million Texans have filed first-time claims for jobless benefits since the middle of March, when social distancing measures were put in place.
Nationally, 2.4 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, pushing the total to more than 38 million during health and economic crisis. Claims nationally were down from about 2.9 million last week and the peak of 6.2 million also hit the week of April 4.
The mass layoffs of recent weeks have far exceeded those of the Great Recession, which lasted from 2007 to 2009 and was con
sidered the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the national unemployment rate was fast approaching Great Depression levels, soaring close to 15 percent in April — and nearly 20 percent if furloughed workers were counted.
Employers cut more than 20 million jobs last month, the Labor Department reported.
Texas reports employment and unemployment for April today. In the March report, which only captured the initial impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the state unemployment rate jumped more than a percentage point to 4.7 percent and employers cut a net 51,000 jobs, the first monthly employment losses in nearly three years.
In Houston, employers cut 18,200 jobs in March, the biggest monthly job loss since the spring of 2009, when the Great Recession was heading toward its bottom. The region’s unemployment rate increased to 5.1 percent, from 3.7 percent a year earlier, the Texas Workforce Commission reported.
Congress passed a law in March that gave people filing for unemployment benefits an additional $600 each week until July. Whether to extend those benefits this summer has touched off fierce debate in Washington over how much more stimulus is needed to support the sagging economy.