In the week ending May 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims in the United States of America was 2,981,000 according to the unemployment insurance weekly claims released earlier by the US Depart of Labour.
An initial claim is a claim filed by an unemployed individual after a separation from an employer.
The new number represented a 195,000 decrease in the claims from the previous week’s revised level. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 15.7 percent for the week ending May 2, an increase of 0.3 percentage point from the previous week’s revised rate.
The new claims bring the total number of applications to more than 36m in the eight weeks since the widespread lockdowns due to the pandemic began.
In the preceding week, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics in its employment situation summary release on May 8, 2020, reported that Total nonfarm payroll employment fell by 20.5 million in April, and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent.
A review of the unemployment figures in April shows varying unemployment rates amongst the various demography’s in the country; Hispanic or Latino unemployment at 18.9%, Black or African American at 14.5%, Asian at 14.5% and the White at 14.2%.
Jay Powell, Federal Reserve Chairman, warned on Wednesday that the outlook was still “subject to significant downside risks” and said that “additional policy measures” from the US central bank and government might be necessary to support the domestic economy.
In a report to clients, Goldman Sachs warned on Wednesday that “the unemployment rate in the United States will peak at 25%, rivaling the worst period of the Great Depression”. The Wall Street bank had previously projected the unemployment rate would peak at 15%. The new forecasts are based on government statistics, the first glimpse of reopening process and new big data sources.
Annual data, which go back to 1929, show that the unemployment rate peaked during the Great Depression at an average of 24.9% in 1933.
While jobless claims have retreated for six consecutive weeks from a record 6.69m in late March, the rates of decline depend heavily on how successfully states can reopen their economies, a nascent process that is not uniform across the country.
Easing lockdowns remains a key step to getting Americans back to work, but the question of where and when jobs can be regained is complicated by the distribution and speed at which states and regions lift their coronavirus induced stay-at-home orders.
The US Markets, had started with drops of over 1% in early trading on Thursday, and all three major indices; S&P 500, DOW 30, and NASDAQ 100 have all recovered slightly albeit still losing 0.5% in the day.
Written by;
Nnamdi M.
