Job losses mount in COVID-19 pandemic

The spread of the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 has propelled municipalities and state governments across the nation to institute stay-home and shelter-in-place orders, resulting in the closure of nonessential businesses. In the wake of such policies, job losses have been steep and rising through the month of March.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly survey of nonfarm payroll employment, the U.S. economy lost 701,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4 percent — the largest one-month rise since 1975. Such figures are just the tip of the iceberg, however, as the BLS cautions: “Note that the March survey reference periods for both surveys predated many coronavirus-related business and school closures that occurred in the second half of the month.”

A separate measure of the health of employment market — initial unemployment insurance claims — set records in the latter half of March. New unemployment claims in the first an