One month after the country saw its longest streak of monthly job gains in U.S. history end at 113 months, nonfarm payroll employment fell by 20.5 million jobs in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
The unemployment rate is now at 14.7%, an increase of 10.3 percentage points in one month.
Construction employment decreased by 975,000 jobs in April, and retail trade jobs declined by 2.1 million. Retail trade employment reached its peak in January 2017, but the industry has since lost 2.4 million jobs.
After losing 499,000 jobs in March, the leisure and hospitality industry lost almost 7.7 million jobs in April. Food services and drinking places accounted for 5.5 million of those lost jobs, a 46% drop.
Prior to March, the largest-ever one-month drop in the leisure and hospitality industry was 83,000 jobs in August 1989.
Here's how economists and others reacted to the April jobs report on Twitter:
A waking nightmare: Today's jobs report shows 20.5 million jobs lost since April, erasing all the job gains since 2000. Total job losses would fill all 30 currently empty Major League Baseball stadiums 16 times over. #JobsReport #JobsDay https://t.co/6ws2O5J0YH pic.twitter.com/XLfSCyIZCx
— Economic Policy Institute (@EconomicPolicy) May 8, 2020
Perhaps the single worst economic report of all time: Apr job losses totaled 20.5 mln, 26x worse than the biggest decline of the GFC and 10x larger than the prior record in 1945. pic.twitter.com/3hM4pHAQnC
— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) May 8, 2020
Two months ago, we had the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years.
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) May 8, 2020
Today, we have the highest unemployment rate in 80 years.
Only 44% of the population had a full-time job in April pic.twitter.com/c0BAIi5Flx
— Nick Bunker (@nick_bunker) May 8, 2020
#jobsday leisure and hospitality lost 8.7 millions jobs since February, more than half of total employment
— Dean Baker (@DeanBaker13) May 8, 2020
The fact that women lost more jobs and that average hourly earnings rose by $1.34 both point to the unequal way the pandemic is impacting workers. Lower wage workers have been laid off, while higher wage workers are working from home.
— Betsey Stevenson (@BetseyStevenson) May 8, 2020
The number of unemployed rose by almost 16 million
— Jay C. Shambaugh (@JayCShambaugh) May 8, 2020
The number who say they are on temporary layoff rose OVER 16 million (other categories fell)
How much worse this becomes is a policy choice. Can we keep firms alive & workers connected to them and keep these layoffs temporary. https://t.co/S2zhzEcHMf
The drop of 801,000 jobs in local government is a harbinger of things to come; from the effects of the shutdown of schools (468,800) to loss revenues. If aid to doesn't flow to state and local governments there won't be a recover. @AFSCME @AFLCIO
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) May 8, 2020
We just lost 1 million state & local government jobs
— Michael Madowitz (@mikemadowitz) May 8, 2020
More than half are teachers
How much longer do we need to wait for State & Local Aid https://t.co/hLzMpF5taY
This is an important nugget of good news. If most of these job losses really are temporary layoffs—and if we can maintain and later restore the connective tissue between workers & their jobs—then the economy could bounce back much more strongly than usualhttps://t.co/FMpudVJYc2
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) May 8, 2020
We've talked for years about a "retail apocalypse." Well, THIS is a retail apocalypse. And what's especially worrying is that unlike jobs elsewhere in the economy, many of these won't bounce back. pic.twitter.com/OEcn2xqaOt
— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) May 8, 2020
