In all, the rolls of the unemployed surged to 23.1 million, a jump of 15.9 million over March as governments across the country placed stringent restrictions on what businesses could be open. Multiple states are beginning to relax those rules, but about 60% of the economy remains under stay-at-home orders.
However, it’s not clear if the April numbers fully accounted for those classified as unemployed. In a note accompanying the tally released Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said those people not at work because they were sick should have been counted as unemployed, though it “is apparent that not all such workers were so classified.”
“The US economy has paid a heavy toll for the efforts to contain the coronavirus, said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. ”“Not only do the payroll numbers clearly set out the magnitude of the economic devastation that had already been trailed by incoming economic data in recent weeks, but it weighs heavily on expectations for the recovery.”
The unprecedented jump in joblessness came largely due to part-time layoffs. Those who said they lost their jobs temporarily surged tenfold to 18.1 million, while those reporting permanent losses more than tripled, from 544,000 to 2 million.
Full-time workers fell by 15 million for the month while part-timers plunged by 7.4 million.
As expected, the biggest hit was to the leisure and hospitality industry, which lost 7.7 million workers, 5.5 million of whom came from eating and drinking establishments.
Education and health services lost 2.5 million, while professional and business services as well as retail both saw 2.1 million workers lose their jobs. The overall unemployment rate for service occupations ballooned from 4% in March to 27.1%.
Manufacturing and “other services” dropped by 1.1 million apiece and government fell by 980,000. Construction dropped 975,000 and transportation and warehousing fell by 584,000.
Average hourly earnings jumped nearly 5% from a year ago, also easily a new record but more reflective of the balance of job losses coming from lower-wage occupations, thus skewing the data. The worst of it was felt by women and minorities. The female jobless rate jumped from 3.6% to 15%; the Latino rate soared from 6% to 18.9%, the African American rate went from 6.7% to 16.7% while Asian American unemployment went from 4.1% to 14.5%.
The total employment level of 133.4 million fell to its lowest since June 1999.
