(NBC) – A new national employment report paints a grim picture and confirms economists’ worst fears: record-breaking layoffs and business slowdowns have put the U.S. economy in a coronavirus recession.
Nearly 3.2 million people applied for unemployment last week. The total number of people who have lost their job and filed claims since the pandemic began in mid-March is now a whopping 33 million. A historic, expected, still sobering and very disheartening number coming out.
The latest ADP report with new numbers showing more than 20 million private-sector jobs were lost in April, shattering the previous record when more than 800,000 jobs were wiped out following the 2008 financial crisis.
It’s the worst jobs data on record since ADP started keeping track nearly two decades ago and a bad a sign of what’s to come in Friday’s jobs report
Payroll processor ADP reports the hardest hit industries — trade, transportation and utilities, construction and hospitality — with a total of more than 14 million furloughed.
Feeling the pressure is Frank Fassero-Reiss the owner of Rothschild’s Restaurant, a family business that’s been feeding Newport Beach residents since 1977. He’s using money from a PPP loan to pay his rent, and five cooks to fill takeout orders but was also forced to lay off 20 employees.
Fassero-Reiss said, “It’s horrible, you know. People that we’ve had working here for 30 years and we have to look them in the eye and tell them that, you know, that this is not gonna be sustainable. And, uh, it’s, it’s tear-jerking honestly. It’s very frustrating.”
Out-of-work restaurant employees and construction workers are living examples of the real-world impact those jobless numbers have.
Emilio Muracchioli is a third-generation painter living in New Jersey with his wife and three kids with one more on the way. He’s now getting unemployment but he still hasn’t been able to get all the benefits he’s entitled to. He said, “I can’t get through to the Department of Labor to even let me know what happened.”
With over 30 million newly jobless Americans already filing for unemployment, the addition of millions more applying for aid is expected to exacerbate problems and create even more delays for people already pushed to their limits.
Some unemployment systems buckling under the pressure. Websites are crashing, hours-long wait times, and funds lost in the mail adding to the growing frustration.
Hope, and money, are seemingly running out for people who desperately need both.
The stream of bad economic news is likely to continue tomorrow when the Labor Department puts out its April jobs report. We are expecting to see an unemployment rate of at least 15% which would be the worst since the great depression.
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.