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Another 6.6 million Americans submitted claims for unemployment benefits in the week ending 4 April, the US Department of Labor reported on Thursday, as the coronavirus pandemic continued to take an unprecedented record toll on the labour market.
This was over and above the record number of jobless claims submitted the previous week – 6.6 million claims, later revised upwards by some 219 000 to over 6.8 million. The previous week's average was revised up by over 54 000 to 2.67 million.
Before the current wave of unemployment, the previous high was in May 2009, when claims also came in at just over 6.6 million.
Though the week's claims - which are reported with a one-week lag - come in at some 261 000 fewer than the previous week, it is the third week in a row that vast numbers of Americans have applied for unemployment benefits, bringing the total to some 17 million, according to estimates by Bloomberg.
The US labour force reached a high of 165.6 million people in February this year, meaning the unemployment claims in just three weeks amount to over 10% of that number.
"This surely will have massive ramifications for the global economy and there is a real chance that we are in for one severe recession once the full effect of the Covid-virus is felt by economies," commented TreasuryONE senior dealer Andre Botha.
Despite the Federal Reserve on Thursday adding an additional $2.3 trillion as stimulus, Botha argued the weeks ahead would be heading "further [into] uncharted territory".
US unemployment peaked in the 1930s during the Great Depression, at around 25%. It reached another peak in 1982, when it exceeded 10%, and again in 2009, when it reached 9.9%.
