The March jobs report painted a grim picture of America’s economic future.
Despite the reference period not capturing the weeks during which state and local officials instituted more strict lockdown measures and ordered the mandatory closure of non-essential businesses, the report still showed the US economy shedding 701,000 jobs over the period.
It was the worst print since the crisis and the first negative month in nearly a decade.
Read more: Stunning Jobs Report Shows 701,000 Lost Jobs. And The ‘Horror Show’ Is Yet To Come
Over the last two weeks, almost 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits.
The numbers are astounding. The y-axis on the jobless claims chart quite literally had to be recalibrated.
That presages horrific jobs reports over the next two (and very possibly three) months.
Obviously, the services sector has suffered mightily amid the lockdown protocols. Restaurants are closed, bars are shuttered, and on and on.
With that in mind, I wanted to highlight what is perhaps the standout from Friday’s payrolls report.
“Total nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply in March (-701,000), reflecting the effects of the coronavirus and efforts to contain it”, the BLS said, in the press release, on the way to noting that “about two-thirds of the drop occurred in leisure and hospitality, mainly in food services and drinking places”.
Again, this isn’t surprising, but the numbers are still astonishing – this is a situation where expecting the worst and seeing it unfold are two entirely different things. Have a look at the visual:
As far as I can tell (and, admittedly, I’m running through these numbers pretty haphazardly in the interest of expeditiously getting the information out there), that one-month decline dwarfs anything witnessed during the GFC.
The BLS itself marveled at the sheer scope of it.
“In March, employment in leisure and hospitality fell by 459,000 [with] most of the decline occurr[ing] in food services and drinking places (-417,000)”, the government said, before adding that “this employment decline nearly offset gains over the previous 2 years”.
