Unemployment Surge: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Are Literally Off The Charts [Infographic]

With an estimated 3.9 billion people around the world now confined to their homes, streets deserted and businesses shuttered, it’s hardly surprising that COVID-19’s impact on the global economy has been nothing short of devastating. In the middle of March, the International Labour Organization warned that 25 million jobs could be lost globally and last week, the UN agency admitted that estimate was conservative, particularly due to a massive spike in the number of initial jobless claims in the United States shortly afterwards.

There was dismay when the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the number of Americans newly applying for unemployment benefits increased to 3,283,000 in the week ending March 21, a figure completely out of proportion with previous peaks that occurred the fall of 1982 and in March 2009, when initial claims had reached 695,000 and 665,000, respectively. As bad as that was, there was far worse to come when the Department of Labor released its figures for the week ending March 28 showing an increase to 6,648,000 – quite literally off the charts.

As alarming as the figures for the second half of March are, it is difficult to compare them to past economic crises given that the U.S. and the world in general have never experienced such a sudden halt to economic activity before. It is of course possible that the economic recovery will be relatively swift once curves are flattened, social distancing measures are relaxed and people get back to work. The U.S. certainly isn’t the only economy posting such extreme numbers either. Around 4 million French workers applied for temporary unemployment benefits over the past two weeks while Spain has recorded 800,000 job losses due to the pandemic.

*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)