33 million Americans now jobless – 50,000 of them are in El Paso
WASHINGTON, DC — Nearly 3.2 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the business shutdowns caused by the viral outbreak deepened the worst U.S. economic catastrophe in decades, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
Roughly 33.5 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the seven weeks since the coronavirus began forcing millions of companies to close their doors and slash their workforces. That is the equivalent of one in five Americans who had been employed back in February, when the unemployment rate had reached a 50-year low of just 3.5%.
On Friday, the federal government will issue the April jobs report, and it’s likely to be the worst since modern record-keeping began after World War II. The unemployment rate is forecast to reach at least 16%, the highest rate since the Great Depression.
In the El Paso area, data released by Workforce Solutions Borderplex shows an additional 4,958 people filed for unemployment last week, for a total of 35,486 claims in the month of April.
That brings the total to roughly 50,000 El Paso area jobless claims that have been made since the beginning of the pandemic.
A recent analysis by El Paso Matters indicated the unemployment rate in El Paso is likely to be around 20 percent when the final job report analysis is completed for last month.
Below is a more detailed look at the El Paso area's continued unemployment situation in four charts provided by Workforce Solutions Borderplex.
