After consecutive weeks of declining first-time jobless claims, Connecticut saw a roughly 3,000-person increase in the statistic for the week ending May 2.
The federal Department of Labor reported Thursday morning that 36,166 filed for unemployment benefits, up from 33,041 the week before. Statewide, 302,144 are receiving unemployment benefits; if all May 2 applicants are included, around 17 percent of the state’s 1.9 million-person workforce is now out of work. The true tally is likely higher, as some applicants may not have earned enough money in their previous jobs to qualify for unemployment benefits.
Nation-wide, nearly 3.2 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the business shutdowns caused by the viral outbreak deepened the worst U.S. economic catastrophe in decades.
Roughly 33.5 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the seven weeks since the coronavirus began forcing millions of companies to close their doors and slash their workforces. That is the equivalent of one in five Americans who had been employed back in February, when the unemployment rate had reached a 50-year low of just 3.5 percent.
On Friday, the government will issue the April jobs report, and it’s likely to be the worst since modern record-keeping began after World War II. The unemployment rate is forecast to reach at least 16 percent, the highest rate since the Great Depression, and economists estimate that 21 million jobs were lost last month. If so, it would mean that nearly all the job growth in the 11 years since the Great Recession ended has vanished in a single month.
Even those stunning figures won’t fully capture the magnitude of the damage the coronavirus has inflicted on the job market. Many people who are still employed have had their hours reduced. Others have suffered pay cuts. Some who lost jobs in April and didn’t look for a new one in light of their bleak prospects won’t even be counted as unemployed. A broader measure – the proportion of adults with jobs – could hit a record low.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
