What do the latest unemployment rates mean for the U.S. economy? NPR's Noel King speaks with Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute and Claudia Goldin of Harvard University.

NPR's global health reporter answers listener questions about how the coronavirus is mutating.

The jobless rate in New Zealand came in at a seasonally adjusted 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2020, Statistics New Zealand said on Wednesday.

NPR's Scott Simon talks with economist William Rodgers about the spiraling U.S. job losses due to the pandemic. The unemployment rate is now the worst since the Great Depression.

The coronavirus crisis has sent US unemployment surging to 14.7 per cent, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt was assuring Americans that the only thing to fear was fear itself.

Unemployment in one Queensland region soars to more than double the state figure as an expert warns it's the 'calm before the storm'.

Walgett Cafe 64 closes its doors due to dwindling income revenue caused by coronavirus.

Youth unemployment has soared as a result of the coronavirus, prompting some young people to start their own businesses to try and claw their way back into the workforce.

A successful WA program turning job seekers into beekeepers looks likely to fold when federal funding runs out in 2018.

Some regional areas of Queensland see unemployment rates skyrocket above 14 per cent with experts warning it will get worse if the Government doesn't step in.

The American economy plunged deeper into crisis last month, losing 20.5 million jobs as the unemployment rate jumped to 14.7%, the worst devastation since the Great Depression.The Labor Department's monthly report Friday provided the clearest picture yet of the breadth and depth of the economic damage -- and how swiftly it spread -- as the coronavirus pandemic swept the country.Job losses have encompassed the entire economy, affecting every major industry. Areas like leisure and hospitality had the biggest losses in April, but even health care shed more than 1 million jobs. Low-wage workers, including many women and members of racial and ethnic minorities, have been hit especially hard."It's literally off the charts," said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. "What would typically take months or quarters to play out in a recession happened in a matter of weeks this time."From almost any vantage point, it was a bleak report. The share of the adult population with a job, at 51.3%, was the lowest on record. Nearly 11 million people reported working part time because they couldn't find full-time work, up from about 4 million before the pandemic.If anything, the numbers probably understate the economic distress.Millions more Americans have filed unemployment claims since the data was collected in mid-April. What's more, because of issues with the way workers are classified, the Labor Department said the actual unemployment rate last month might have been closer to 20%.It remains possible that the recovery, too, will be swift, and that as the pandemic retreats, businesses that were fundamentally healthy before the virus will reopen, rehire and return more or less to normal. The one bright spot in Friday's report was that nearly 80% of the unemployed said they had been temporarily laid off and expected to return to their jobs in the coming months.President Donald Trump endorsed this view in an interview Friday morning on Fox News. "Those jobs will all be back, and they'll be back very soon," Trump said, "and next year we're going to have a phenomenal year."But Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, said that such optimism was misplaced, and that many of the jobs could not be recovered."This is going to be a hard reality," Swonk said. "These furloughs are permanent, not temporary."Many businesses have indicated that employees can work from home throughout the summer, hurting sales at downtown restaurants. Meetings and conferences have been put off as well, reducing demand at hotels and other gathering places. And the longer the pandemic lasts, the more businesses will fail, deepening the downturn.The broad nature of the job cuts, too, means it will take longer for the labor market to recover than if the losses were confined to one or two areas."There is no safe place in the labor market right now," said Martha Gimbel, an economist and labor market expert at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative. "Once people are unemployed, once they've lost their jobs, once their spending has been sucked out of the economy, it takes so long to come back from that."Carrie Hines, a managing director at an advertising firm in Austin, Texas, had the kind of professional job -- adaptable to working from home -- that seemed insulated from the pandemic's effects. But her firm worked closely with companies in the airline, hotel and amusement park industries. When their business evaporated as a result of the outbreak, it was only a matter of time before Hines' firm felt the impact. She was laid off April 20."I was shocked," she said. "I've never had a gap in work since college."Hines and her husband are cutting back where they can, and they have canceled plans to send their three children to summer camp. "I never imagined this kind of job market where the entire advertising industry has been crushed," she said.The scale of the job losses last month alone far exceed the 8.7 million lost in the last recession, when unemployment peaked at 10% in October 2009."I thought the Great Recession was once in a lifetime, but this is much worse," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global.The only comparable period is when unemployment reached about 25% in 1933, before the government began publishing official statistics. Then, as now, workers from a variety of backgrounds found themselves with few prospects for quickly landing a new job.The government's official definition of unemployment typically requires people to be actively looking for work, making the measure ill-suited to a crisis in which the government is encouraging people to stay home. Some 6.4 million people left the labor force entirely in April, meaning they were neither working nor looking for work.Joblessness -- by any measure -- could be even higher in the report for May, which will reflect conditions next week. Some economists say the unemployment rate should fall over the summer as people begin to return to work. Several states have begun to reopen their economies, and others are expected to do so in coming weeks.But with the virus untamed, it's not clear how quickly customers will return to businesses. And epidemiologists and economists warn that if states move too quickly, they could risk a second wave of infections, imperiling public health and the economy."That would stop people from shopping and cause austerity," Bovino said.For businesses, the uncertainty about the path of the pandemic and about consumers' response to it is making planning difficult.When Austin Ramirez heard about the coronavirus earlier this year, his initial concern was for his supply chain. Ramirez runs Husco International, a manufacturer of hydraulic and electromechanical components for cars and other equipment. The company has a factory in China and receives parts from suppliers there and around the world.By April, virtually the entire U.S. auto industry was shut down, Husco included. (The company's nonautomotive production continued at a reduced rate.) Ramirez said he didn't know when business would bounce back. His goal is to weather the storm."There's no visibility or certainty on what the future demand is going to look like," he said. "We can't build a business model that relies on there being a big recovery six months from now."While most of Husco's roughly 750 North American workers have been furloughed during the crisis, the company has mostly avoided large-scale, permanent job cuts. Ramirez said he expected that most of his workers would come back when he needs them.But particularly in industries like retail and hospitality, layoffs that were initially temporary might not remain so as bankruptcies mount and business owners confront shifts in consumer behavior.Most forecasters expect the unemployment rate to remain elevated at least through 2021, and probably longer. That means that it will be years before workers enjoy the bargaining power that was beginning to bring them faster wage gains and better benefits before the crisis.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

(California Court of Appeal) - Upheld the denial of a man's application for unemployment insurance benefits. Affirmed the denial of writ relief.

The conversation around testing and when to reopen continues; we check in with the Solano County. Questions about filing for unemployment get some needed answers, and how children’s parties are still happening online.

"The big questions of the day for the workers is, 'I don’t feel safe. Do I have to go back to work?'" a Colorado Department of Labor and Employment official said Monday. "And, as with everything with unemployment, it depends."

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.

So far, state labor officials have opened investigations into 150 instances of workers being called back to their workplaces or being offered new jobs and refusing, choosing instead to continue requesting unemployment benefits because of coronavirus-related concerns.

The U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression, as 20.5 million jobs vanished in the worst monthly loss on record. The figures are stark evidence of the damage the coronavirus has done to a now-shattered economy.

U.S. Unemployment Reaches 14.7 Percent – Chart from Great Depression Shows Risks Ahead

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 8, 2020 ~   The data is out this morning and it’s not pretty. Nonfarm payrolls collapsed by 20.5 million jobs in April and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent. The United States is now seeing the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression. We prepared the above chart from data available at the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) archives at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Following the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, it was not until August 1931 that the unemployment rate reached 15.01 percent. We’re now at 14.7 percent unemployment from a rate of 3.5 percent just two months ago in February. Consider using the chart above to figure out just how much cash on hand you need to maintain.

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Think that's a big number.

Peaked at 10% during the Great Recession.


8.6 million net jobs lost during the Great Recession. 20.5 million jobs were lost in April.

The coronavirus crisis has forced another 3.2 million Americans to file for jobless aid, bringing the total number to 33.5 million in the seven weeks since the pandemic forced millions of companies to close and layoff huge amounts of staff.

Veterans are being hit hard by unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The unemployment rate for April, as measured by the Covid-19 adjusted measure, was 28.2% according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office.

The patient, laid up in the ICU, gets sicker. Thursday, 3.2 million more people joined the ranks of the unemployed, bringing to 33.5 million the number of Americans who’ve lost jobs since mid-March. Believe it: One in five of those employed before this living, dying hell began is now seeking jobless benefits.

Gov. Cuomo said he understands the worries of those out of work during the coronavirus pandemic — but the sentiment offered little solace to those who have been watching their bank accounts dwindle for weeks with no relief in sight.

For Californians desperate to get help from the state unemployment office, the last month has been a perfect storm of technological failures.

While some people said they were able to file a claim with the state Employment Development Department on Tuesday, many others said they were frustrated that the online portal malfunctioned.

The coronavirus crisis has forced another 3.2 million Americans to file for jobless aid, bringing the total number to 33.5 million in the seven weeks since the pandemic forced millions of companies to close and layoff huge amounts of staff.

Veterans are being hit hard by unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. Cuomo said he understands the worries of those out of work during the coronavirus pandemic — but the sentiment offered little solace to those who have been watching their bank accounts dwindle for weeks with no relief in sight.

Problems from the surge of jobless claims reflect years of cutbacks and greater restrictions on eligibility.

A catch in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program could disqualify many workers.

Countless people have applied for unemployment benefits they cannot get. This can create a crisis worse than the coronavirus outbreak.

DONALD Trump could see his hopes of re-election this November go up in smoke as economists warn the crippling unemployment rate the coronavirus pandemic has caused in the US could remain in double-digits well into 2021.

BRITAIN'S summer holiday destinations will face some of the biggest economic hits of the coronavirus pandemic with fears of massive job losses in coastal communities, a study has claimed.

About 10% of Southern Utah workers have filed for unemployment amid the coronavirus, which doesn't include self-employed and many non-profit workers.

Jobless claims have surged amid the coronavirus outbreak, revealing the limitations of a state unemployment system.

Indiana will issue unemployment benefits to workers who do not typically qualify. But distributing new federal stimulus money will take time.

Indiana's unemployment trust fund was recovering from the Great Recession. Then coronavirus hit. How long will the state's unemployment benefits last?

Nearly 120,000 more Indiana workers filed for unemployment, but the amount is less than the week before, signaling some encouragement.

The federal boost to unemployment compensation is retroactive to March 29, though some Hoosiers will still be waiting.

More than 22 million Americans are out of work because of how the coronavirus has shut down much of the economy.

A compilation of question and answers about filing for unemployment insurance benefits in Indiana.

The number of workers seeking unemployment benefits in Indiana rose for another week during the coronavirus pandemic.

Here's how the self-employed, gig workers and others who don't typically qualify for state unemployment benefits can receive new federal benefits.

New data from the U.S. Department of Labor reflects the continued toll of the coronavirus on Indiana workers.

Indiana workers could lose their eligibility for unemployment benefits if they are recalled to work but refuse to return over fears of the coronavirus

The number of initial unemployment claims filed in Indiana last week has dropped compared to the number of new claims filed a week earlier.