Number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits in two months skyrockets to nearly 39 million amid Covid-19 crisis
People who lost their jobs wait in line to file for unemployment at an Arkansas Workforce Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, US, April 6, 2020
The number of weekly applications has slowed for seven straight weeks. Yet the figures remain breathtakingly high – 10 times higher than normal before the crisis struck. Over 5 million people worldwide have been confirmed infected by the virus, and more than 330,000 deaths have been recorded, including over 94,000 in the US and around 165,000 in Europe, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University and based on government data. Experts believe the true toll is significantly higher.A poll suggests President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have remained steady amid the crisis.
Still, major employers keep cutting jobs. Uber said this week that it will lay off 3,000 more employees because demand for rides has plummeted. Digital publishers Vice, Quartz and BuzzFeed, magazine giant Conde Nast and the owner of The Economist magazine announced job cuts last week. Alexis Weber, laid off from her job as a bartender at an Atlanta restaurant, said it was a struggle to secure unemployment benefits – she filed on April 1 and had to wait until early May to get her first payment. She is not sure when her employer will want her back, or if she will want to return.
European countries have also seen heavy job losses, but robust government safety-net programs in places like Germany and France are subsidizing the wages of millions of workers and keeping them on the payroll.
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