With the US Labor Department set to reveal the number of weekly jobless claims on Thursday, economists expect another 4.5 million Americans to have applied for unemployment benefits for the week ending April 18.
A slight decrease on the previous week’s 5.2 million claims, it will bring the total number to around 27 million in a month. The number is greater than all the 23.3 million jobs created in the US since the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Economists broadly expect the figure to steadily decline going forward.
“Claims have moved passed the peak more visibly now, but the cumulative number is still rising significantly,” Morgan Stanley economist Jan Kozak stated, according to Yahoo Finance. He said the rise in this cumulative number would be due to the massive backlog of claims waiting to be processed.
Kozak’s prediction was echoed by Nomura economist Lewis Alexander, who said: “While the labor market remains under severe strain, states that imposed lockdowns relatively early are seeing claims activity improve somewhat.”
According to Morgan Stanley, the average jobless rate will hover at 15.7 percent during the second quarter. The US will experience a 16.4 percent unemployment rate next month, “higher than at any point since the Great Depression,’‘ it said.
There have been more than 2,640,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and over 184,000 deaths worldwide to date. In the worst-hit nation, the United States, more than 849,000 people have been infected and more than 47,000 deaths have been reported.
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