David McNew/Getty Images(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — New figures from the Labor Department this morning show 3,169,000 people applied for unemployment in the week ending May 2.
This means more than 33 million people have applied for unemployment in the last seven weeks, as COVID-19 shutters businesses, resulting in layoffs and lost jobs. Bad as the news is, it’s about what economists were expecting.
The 3.16 million is a decrease of 677,000 people from revised figures for the week ending April 25, which itself was revised up by 7,000, to 3.846 million.
The unemployment numbers come ahead of what’s expected to be a historically bad jobs report due Friday, with some estimates declaring we could see an unemployment rate of 16%, or higher.
More Americans are now unemployed than at any time since the Great Depression.
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.