The world's largest economy is heading for a recession. An important indicator is the initial jobless claims per week. Millions have registered as unemployed in the past few weeks. Now there is new data.
Washington (dpa) - Because of the ongoing corona crisis, experts expect unemployment to increase further in the USA. The Washington Department of Labor released today (2:30 p.m. CEST) the weekly number of new jobless claims.
Since mid-March, more than 26 million people in the United States have lost their jobs - more than ever before in such a short time in the world's largest economy.
The new numbers will show initial jobless claims in the week up to and including April 25. There were 4.4 million new applications in the previous week. They are considered an indicator of the short-term development of the US labor market and most recently indicated a dramatic economic downturn. Before the pandemic escalated, the number of initial applications was regularly below 100,000 per week.
According to experts, the US unemployment rate should already be around 15 percent. However, there is still no exact value because the statistics were not able to keep up with the brute rate of job losses. In February the rate was still extremely low at 3.5 percent.
The rapid spread of the corona virus has largely brought public life to a standstill in the United States. The vast majority of the approximately 330 million Americans are subject to exit restrictions. Many shops and businesses are closed, restaurants and hotels remain empty, flights are canceled en masse, events are canceled. Many employees of closed companies must therefore apply for unemployment benefits. In addition, layoffs in the United States are generally far easier than in Germany, for example.
The US economy was still buzzing until February, highs were reported on the stock exchange and experts anticipated economic growth of a good two percent. But the rapid spread of the corona virus since the beginning of March destroyed the good economic prospects - now the United States is heading towards a deep recession because of the corona crisis. Economic output already fell significantly in the first quarter, although the pandemic only worsened there in March. Experts warn that the largest economy in the world is facing the greatest slump in growth this year since the Great Depression almost 100 years ago.
From January through March, US economic output declined 4.8 percent year over year, the Department of Commerce said on Wednesday. It was the biggest economic dent since the global financial crisis. The data is the first estimate, so the value could still be corrected in late May or late June. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the US economy grew by a solid 2.1 percent.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, more than a million people in the United States have been infected with the novel corona virus. More than 58,000 people have died. The pathogen Sars-CoV-2 can trigger the lung disease Covid-19.