WORLD
1.5 million workers filed for unemployment insurance last week
Washington, June 19, AZERTAC
An additional 1.5 million workers filed for unemployment insurance for the first time last week, a drop of just 58,000 claims from the week before, according to Washingtonpost.
The continued elevated level of jobless claims raises new questions about whether steep job losses during the pandemic could last longer than hoped, economists say.
Since the coronavirus pandemic began this year, there have been 13 straight weeks where more than 1 million people have filed for unemployment for the first time. By contrast, in February the weekly claims were roughly 200,000 a week. The previous record was 695,000 jobless claims in 1982.
There have been hopes that the reopening of businesses that had forcibly shuttered would see these numbers drop precipitously, helping to speed the economy’s recovery at a comparable rate to its fall. But this “V-shaped” recovery does not appear to be materializing as job losses remain severe three months into the pandemic.
Another 760,000 people filed initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a supplemental program created by Congress for self-employed and gig workers. And the total number of people receiving benefits went down slightly, to 20.5 million. More than 45 million people have filed for unemployment at some point during the pandemic