With shops and factories closed nationwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all of the jobs created in the US economy in the last decade were wiped out in a single month.
An unprecedented 20.5mn jobs were destroyed in April in the world's largest economy, the biggest amount ever recorded, the Labour Department said in a report released yesterday, the first to capture the impact of a full month of the lockdowns.
That drove the unemployment rate to 14.7% from 4.4% in March — the highest level since the Great Depression of the last century.
The United States is home to the world's largest and deadliest coronavirus outbreak, with more than 75,000 fatalities and 1.2mn cases reported as of Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The economic damage from the lockdowns to contain the virus has been swift and stunning, despite nearly $3tn in financial aid approved by Congress, and there is growing fear that the temporary layoffs will become permanent since some companies won't survive.
Taken together, 21.4mn jobs were destroyed in March and April, nearly equal to the 23mn positions created during the economy's long expansion from February 2010 to February 2020.
Meanwhile, Canada shed 3mn jobs in the last two months due to the coronavirus lockdown, causing the unemployment rate to shoot up to 13% in April, the government reported yesterday.
That rate more than doubled, following a relatively small increase the previous month when restrictions started to be put in place, its statistical agency said.
The new rate is second only to the 13.1% observed during a recession in 1982, but lower than analysts had forecast.
Statistics Canada said the figure would have been much higher had it included a large number of people who wanted to work but could not job-hunt "presumably due to ongoing business closures and very limited opportunities to find new work."
Many also worked fewer hours, the agency said.
All of this has led to 6.7mn Canadians applying for unemployment benefits or government aid, and just over one in five Canadian households reporting difficulties meeting financial obligations.
That drove the unemployment rate to 14.7% from 4.4% in March — the highest level since the Great Depression of the last century.
The United States is home to the world's largest and deadliest coronavirus outbreak, with more than 75,000 fatalities and 1.2mn cases reported as of Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The economic damage from the lockdowns to contain the virus has been swift and stunning, despite nearly $3tn in financial aid approved by Congress, and there is growing fear that the temporary layoffs will become permanent since some companies won't survive.
Taken together, 21.4mn jobs were destroyed in March and April, nearly equal to the 23mn positions created during the economy's long expansion from February 2010 to February 2020.
Meanwhile, Canada shed 3mn jobs in the last two months due to the coronavirus lockdown, causing the unemployment rate to shoot up to 13% in April, the government reported yesterday.
That rate more than doubled, following a relatively small increase the previous month when restrictions started to be put in place, its statistical agency said.
The new rate is second only to the 13.1% observed during a recession in 1982, but lower than analysts had forecast.
Statistics Canada said the figure would have been much higher had it included a large number of people who wanted to work but could not job-hunt "presumably due to ongoing business closures and very limited opportunities to find new work."
Many also worked fewer hours, the agency said.
All of this has led to 6.7mn Canadians applying for unemployment benefits or government aid, and just over one in five Canadian households reporting difficulties meeting financial obligations.
