4/16/2020 Jobless claims report: US economy has erased nearly all job gains since Great Recession

BREAKING S&P 500 and Nasdaq rise as Amazon, Netflix hit record highs 

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MARK E TS

The US economy has erased nearly all the job gains

since the Great Recession
P U B L I S H E D T H U, A P R 1 6 2 0 2 0 • 8 : 5 9 A M E DT U P DAT E D 2 9 M I N AG O

Thomas Franck
@ TO M W F R A N C K

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KEY POINTS
The Labor Department reported that the number of Americans applying for
state unemployment benefits totaled 5.245 million last week.

Combined with the prior three jobless claims reports, the number of
Americans who’ve filed for unemployment over the last four weeks is 22.025
million.

That number is just below the 22.442 million jobs added to payrolls since
November 2009, when the U.S. economy began to add jobs back after the
recession.

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4/16/2020 Jobless claims report: US economy has erased nearly all job gains since Great Recession

BREAKING S&P 500 and Nasdaq rise as Amazon, Netflix hit record highs 


A man speaks with a library worker after receiving an unemployment form, as the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-
19) continues, in Hialeah, Florida, April 8, 2020.
Marco Bello | Reuters

It took only four weeks for the U.S. economy to wipe out nearly all the job gains in the
last 11 years.

The coronavirus and the forced closure of business throughout the country again
fueled the number of Americans applying for state unemployment benefits,
which last week totaled 5.245 million, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Combined with the three prior jobless claims reports, the number of Americans who
have filed for unemployment over the previous four weeks is 22.025 million. That
number is just below the 22.442 million jobs added to nonfarm payrolls since
November 2009, when the U.S. economy began to add jobs back to the economy
after the Great Recession.

Only 417,000 more U.S. workers need to file for unemployment benefits to erase all
nonfarm gains since 2009, a figure likely to be easily surpassed this week.

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4/16/2020 Jobless claims report: US economy has erased nearly all job gains since Great Recession

The rapid nature

BREAKING S&Pof theand
500 job losses
Nasdaqwillrise
be as
unprecedented, wiping
Amazon, Netflix out more
hit record than a
highs 
decade’s worth of job gains in five weeks. We’ll find out for sure next Thursday when
the national claims for this week are reported. 

“While today’s jobless numbers are down on last week, they still mean that all the job
gains since the financial crisis have been erased,” wrote Seema Shah, chief strategist
at Principal Global Investors. “What’s more, with many workers, including those in
the gig economy, not included in these numbers, labor market pains may be even
worse than these numbers suggest.”

“Concerns for the second half of the year may be underestimated,” she added.
“Although governments are looking to lift lockdowns, the re-opening of economies
will be only gradual, compounding financial strains for businesses and households,
suppressing demand and suggesting a slower economic recovery.”

Though investors won’t receive the official look at the U.S. unemployment rate for
this month until May 8, the Labor Department’s latest nonfarm payrolls report
showed droves of layoffs at restaurants and bars as some state governments force the
closure of the majority of their businesses.

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4/16/2020 Jobless claims report: US economy has erased nearly all job gains since Great Recession

The latest nonfarm

BREAKING report
S&P 500 andshowed
Nasdaqpayrolls
rise as plunged
Amazon,byNetflix
701,000 in March,
hit record marking
highs 
the first decline since 2010 and the worst fall since March 2009. The unemployment
rate jumped nearly a full percentage point to 4.4% from 3.5%. 

— CNBC’s Gina Francolla, Nate Rattner and John Schoen contributed reporting.

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