47 Million Americans Work in Jobs at High Risk of Layoffs, Federal Reserve Analysis Says
47 Million
Americans Work in Jobs at High Risk of Layoffs, Federal Reserve Analysis Says
United States Federal Reserve
analysts said the unemployment rate may soar past 32 percent and the
coronavirus freeze on the economy could cost 47 million Americans their jobs.
Economists
at the Federal Reserve’s St. Louis district estimated Monday that the
coronavirus impact on the economy may lead to 47 million jobs lost, pushing the
nationwide total to 52.8 million people when the estimated 5 million already
without work are included. This would push the U.S. unemployment rate to 32.1
percent, which is significantly higher than the 24.9 percent rate of
unemployment last marked during the worst stretch of the 1930s Great
Depression, Forbes noted.
Last
week, a record number of Americans filed for unemployment benefits, 3.28
million – more than quadruple the previous record of 695,000 set in 1982. But
the Fed analysis shows the worst of the novel coronavirus’ negative effects on
the U.S. economy are yet to come.
The Fed’s
latest projection of a potential 32.1 percent unemployment rate is slightly
worse than the estimate St. Louis Fed President James Bullard released last week of
30 percent. Both sets of data factored in the most at-risk jobs as a result of
the government-induced economic freeze across the country which seeks to curb
the coronavirus pandemic.
The Fed
analysis released Monday encouraged Americans not to stop looking for work and
did not factor in any effects of the $2 trillion federal government stimulus
passed last week. Previous Fed research showed that 66.8 million workers were
in “occupations with high risk of layoff.” The coronavirus lockdown
particularly hurts employees who require in-person contact at their jobs as
opposed to many white collar positions which can be performed remotely.
As CNBC reported Monday,
additional research has categorized 27.3 million people as working in “high
contact-intensive” jobs within restaurants, barber shops and airline companies.
“These
are very large numbers by historical standards, but this is a rather unique
shock that is unlike any other experienced by the U.S. economy in the last 100
years,” St. Louis Federal Reserve economist Miguel Faria-e-Castro wrote in a research paper published
last week.
Providing
a slight silver lining, the Fed economists noted that the coronavirus lockdown
of the economy is not expected to last long, but is expected to drop off
dramatically in the coming weeks.
“You’d
have this huge spike mostly centered in the second quarter, but everyone knows
exactly what that is, that’s pandemic relief that’s done on purpose. If we can
get this to work right, everything will snap back to normal once this is over,”
Bullard told CNBC last week.
The
number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is projected to hit a
second-straight week of records after the record-setting week ending March 21.
The post 47 Million Americans Work in
Jobs at High Risk of Layoffs, Federal Reserve Analysis Says appeared
first on Newsweek.
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