47 million have filed for benefits
1.48m more Americans file for unemployment as
pandemic takes toll
Claims have fallen for 12 weeks in a row but remain
historically high as about 47 million have filed for benefits in 14 weeks
Dominic
Rushe
@dominicru
Published
onThu 25 Jun 2020 13.32 BST
Another
1.48 million people filed for unemployment insurance across the US last week,
as the grim economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic continued and infection
rates picked up in many states.
Claims for
unemployment insurance have now fallen for 12 weeks in a row, but remain
historically high. About 47 million people have now filed for benefits in the
last 14 weeks, with 3m claims made in the last two weeks. Last week’s figure
was just 60,000 lower than the previous week.
The latest
figure comes even as states across the country have begun reopening after
relaxing quarantine measures. But surges in infection rates in states,
including new record highs in states including Arizona, California and Texas,
are likely to prove a further drag on the economic recovery.
Nicholas
Juhle, head of economic research at Greenleaf Trust, said a backlog of claims
may have been adding to the still huge number of weekly claims. Prior to the
pandemic, the largest weekly claim on record was 695,000 in October 1982.
“The big
question now is how much of this do we get back,” said Juhle. “It could take a
couple of months before we get a clearer insight.”
Juhle said
many of the jobs lost may be structural rather than cyclical losses caused by
quarantine measures. “The pandemic has accelerated some existing trends. The
best examples are probably e-commerce versus bricks-and-mortar retailing and
the shale industry,” he said.
The shift
to online shopping may mean many of the millions of jobs lost in retailing are
gone for good, and the low oil price may mean the shale industry will struggle
for years to make a comeback. “There are probably hundreds of thousands of jobs
that existed before this pandemic that aren’t coming back,” he said.
Weekly
claims figures are volatile and are not seen as the best indicator of the
overall job market. Many people do not make claims when they are laid off,
others are disqualified and backlogs are still filtering into the system.
The labor
department will release its latest monthly jobs report next Thursday. The
report is seen as the most accurate picture of the jobs market, but it too has
struggled to collect data during the pandemic.
Last month
the labor department surprised economists by announcing the unemployment rate
had fallen to 13.3% in May, down from 14.7% in April, although it also said
difficulty collecting data meant the figure was probably 3% higher.
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