US Jobless Claims: 28% of all people employed in February lost their job, at least temporarily – Wells Fargo

The weekly report showed initial claims reach 1.87 million last week. Analysts at Wells Fargo, point out over the past 11 weeks, 42.6 million initial jobless claims have been filed, meaning that nearly 28% of all people employed in February lost their job, at least temporarily.

Key Quotes: 

“1.9 million initial jobless claims were filed the week ended May 30, more than two months after the country entered shutdown. Moreover, despite the broad re-opening underway, continuing claims rose, to 21.5 million.”

“The 1.9 million was the ninth straight decline, but after 11 weeks it remains staggeringly high. Most states have likely worked through technical backlogs, which means that layoffs have clearly spread well beyond the directly affected industries.”

“Last week we were excited to see that continuing claims fell, indicating that gross hiring had picked up enough to pull down the number of people receiving benefits. There was no such consolation this week, as they rose again to 21.5 million.”