Labor Dept: 1.5M New Jobless Claims, 45M Since March

USA Today reports:

Three months into the coronavirus crisis, the U.S. economy is reopening and many Americans are going back to work. But hundreds of thousands are still being laid off. About 1.5 million workers filed applications for unemployment insurance for the first time last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That pushes the running tally of those who have made initial claims over the past 13 weeks past a mind-boggling 45 million. First-time claims are a reliable gauge of layoffs.

“People will say claims are coming down, but for an economy that is reopening, that is a huge number,” said Steven Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard in New York. “The economy is losing workers and employment beyond the initial impact tied to businesses that shut down. There are a lot of industries that are getting hurt and that’s starting to cascade down, that is what those numbers are showing.”