JOBS HOPES HELD IN CHECK
Unemployment claims hit 58.4M with more on way
The number of Americans who have applied for unemployment benefits during the coronavirus pandemic grew to more than 58.4 million on Thursday, as 1 million more filed claims.
Initial claims for the week of March 17 were down roughly 100,000 from the week prior — and 85 percent lower than the peak of 6.8 million claims filed at the end of March. But the latest Department of Labor numbers — combined with plans by large companies to lay off thousands more workers — suggests the economy is still struggling to get back on its feet.
“We’re seeing gradual improvement, but we really need to underscore the word ‘gradual’ here. We’re only inching along in terms of the labor market’s recovery,” Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities, told The Wall Street Journal.
In the past 23 weeks, only once — during the week of Aug. 8 — has the number of people filing jobless claims fallen under 1 million, according to the department. And more pain is expected as companies continue to grapple with the major changes taking place in US society as a result of the pandemic.
American Airlines this week announced plans to slash 19,000 jobs by Oct. 1 as government funds used to prop up the struggling airline industry at the start of the pandemic run dry. Bed Bath & Beyond said on Tuesday it would be cutting 2,800 jobs at its corporate headquarters and across its stores, or roughly 5 percent of its total workforce.
Even Silicon Valley is slashing staff. Around 1,000 workers of cloud computing company Salesforce, which employs 54,000, are on track to lose their jobs despite a record $5.15 billion in sales in the most recent quarter, the Journal reported this week.
At a total of 58.4 million, the number of Americans who have filed for unemployment claims during the course of the pandemic is greater than the population of South Africa — and has long since surpassed the 37 million jobs lost over the 18 months during the Great Recession that ended in 2009.
However, continuing claims that measure sustained joblessness on a oneweek lag dropped by 223,000 to 14.5 million in the week ending Aug. 15, the feds said — an encouraging sign that more Americans may be leaving unemployment rolls.
Americans still collecting checks now have gone almost a month without the $600 boost to weekly benefits provided under the CARES Act stimulus bill.
President Trump signed an executive order this month to continue the extra benefits at $300 a week. Currently, more than half of all states have signed up to receive the federal funds.