Den amerikanske arbejdsløshed er eksploderet, og den nærmer sig niveauet fra Depressionen i 30’erne.
Uddrag fra Commerzbank:
An unprecedented jump in the US unemployment rate is looming for April. The rate is
expected to rise to over 15%, into regions last reached during the Great Depression of the
1930s, as our chart of the week shows.
As early as March, the US unemployment rate had already shown the first effects of the Corona crisis, rising 0.9 percentage points to 4.4%. This increase had already been unusually strong. There had been a similar increase since the Second World War only three times: in 1949, 1953 and 1975.
However, the shutdown of the economy did not hit the labour market fully until April. The
unemployment rate is expected to show an unprecedented jump in that month:
• In March, the statistics showed 7.14 million unemployed. Since then, more than 20 million Americans have lost their jobs. If the labour force remained unchanged, this would push the unemployment rate to 18%, a jump of 13.6 percentage points (see chart).
• In fact, the result could be worse. After all, the relevant period for the labour market report is the week including the 12th of each month (April 12 fell on a Sunday in 2020, so for most companies the week after this date is likely to have been the relevant pay period). Data on initial claims for unemployment benefits are not yet available for this week. The number of unemployed could therefore be another 4-5 million higher, and the unemployment rate would then rise to more than 20%.
The peak rate in the Depression was about 25%.
