Unemployment Claims Soar to Record High 3.3 Million

A new record for unemployment claims was just established as the coronavirus epidemic begins showing its fangs.

More Than 10 Million to be Jobless by Summer

Jobless claims soared to 3.28 million in the week ending March 21, the Department of Labor announced, with the previous record being the week ending October 2, 1982 with 695,000 claims.

The prior week only saw 282,000 claims, with initial claims sitting between low and mid 200,000s each week. As the coronavirus keeps spreading and measures keep being implemented, many businesses are being forced to shut down in order to limit the spread – thus leading to layoffs or furloughing workers.

“We estimate that by summer, 14 million workers will lost their jobs due to the coronavirus shock,” former chief economist for the US Department of Labor Heidi Shierholz said in a Twitter post.

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and businesses closing down across the nation, economists are expecting the US economy to fall into a recession in the second quarter of 2020, although a comeback is also expected later on in the year.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called the numbers “not relevant,” due to the information and amount of claims pre-dating Wednesday’s economic relief bill, adding that businesses “hopefully will be able to hire back a lot of those people.”