Breaking: US Initial Jobless Claims skyrocket to 3,283,000

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Initial Claims for unemployment benefits in the US jumped to 3,283,000 for the week ending March 21 from 282,000, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday.

"During the week ending March 21, the increase in initial claims are due to the impacts of the COVID-19 virus," noted the DOL in its press release. "Nearly every state providing comments cited the COVID-19 virus impacts. States continued to cite services industries broadly, particularly accommodation and food services."

Follow our live coverage of the US data and the market reaction.

Further details of the report showed that Continuing Jobless Claims for the week ending March 14 rose to its highest level since April 14, 2018, at 1,803,000.

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billknowsbest on March 26th, 2020 at 14:14 UTC »

I lost my job at a university.

Monday: every 2 hours sanitize every surface

Wednesday: we might be shutting down for 2 weeks

Friday: we are shutting down for 2 weeks

Monday: we are closed until september good luck

PamZero on March 26th, 2020 at 13:37 UTC »

And I know people who haven’t even signed up yet, and I can’t Bc I’m self employed.

SsurebreC on March 26th, 2020 at 12:45 UTC »

The previous record was 695,000... in 1982. We didn't lose this many jobs all at once even the 2008 financial crisis.

Here is a chart for a comparison.

EDIT: since a few people asked the same question, here's a comparison when adjusted for the population.

This chart has 146 million working Americans in 1982. 695,000 jobs lost is 0.48% or slightly less than half of one percent.

Today, we have 206 million working Americans and 3.283m jobs lost is 1.6% or over three times as many people losing their jobs as the previous record when adjusted for population.