The jobless rate for Asian Americans soared to historic levels; from 4.1% in March to 14.5% in April.
“The US economy has paid a heavy toll for the efforts to contain the coronavirus, said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. ”“Not only do the payroll numbers clearly set out the magnitude of the economic devastation that had already been trailed by incoming economic data in recent weeks, but it weighs heavily on expectations for the recovery.”
In April, the US unemployment rate leaped to 14.7 percent, up from 4.4 percent in March after months at a half-century low, according to the monthly employment report, released Friday (May 8) by the Department of Labor.
In just over a month, the coronavirus has wiped out all job gains since the Great Recession and brought the country’s decade-long record economic growth streak to an abrupt halt.
Those workers employed in the leisure and hospitality industry were the hardest hit as hotels, restaurants and bars closed down as a result of measures taken to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
In New York alone, most of the job losses in those lower wage occupations was the reason Asian Americans filing for unemployment exploded 6,900% for the month of April.
Education and health services lost 2.5 million, while professional and business services as well as retail both saw 2.1 million workers lose their jobs. The overall unemployment rate for service occupations ballooned from 4% in March to 27.1%.
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