Job losses continue to be a hot topic as the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy. Last week's initial jobless claims brought the trailing six-week total to more than 30 million Americans who have lost their jobs.
With a new month brings new monthly data as ADP released its April report yesterday, which showed private payrolls eliminated 20,236,000 jobs during the month. The total from last month is the highest since the monthly report began in 2002 and blows away the prior record of 834,665 in February 2009.
As bad as April's ADP report was, it's likely understated as ADP used the week of April 12 for its sample period. The remaining weeks in April saw more than 8 million initial jobless claims filed.
"Job losses of this scale are unprecedented," co-head of the ADP Research Institute Ahu Yildirmaz said. "The total number of job losses for the month of April alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession."
The services and hospitality sector was the hardest hit in terms of job losses as the sector accounted for 8.6 million of the month's job losses. Trade, transportation and utilities was the second-hardest hit sector, accounting for 3.44 million of the month's job losses. Education and management of companies or enterprises were the only sectors to see job gains, adding 28,000 and 6,000 jobs, respectively.
Companies with more than 500 employees shed the most jobs last month as just under 9 million employees lost their jobs. Companies with less than 50 employees accounted for 6 million of the job losses, while mid-size companies accounted for the remaining 5 million job losses.
All eyes will now be on Friday's April nonfarm payrolls report which is expected to show payrolls fell by 21.5 million in April with the unemployment rate expected to jump to 16% from 4.4%.
St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard is prepared for Friday to show an ugly number. "The unemployment rate is going to be extremely high," Bullard said. "We think 20% isn’t unlikely, could even be higher than that."