Survey shows 34M U.S. jobs lost since mid-March

VCU-Arizona State survey finds 10 million job losses since early April

Published April 27, 2020 by Sydney Lake

Approximately 10 million jobs have been lost in the United States since early April, according to a biweekly survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University and Arizona State University economists — bringing the total jobs lost since mid-March to approximately 34 million.

“The size of these changes are hard to fathom,” said Adam Blandin, the VCU School of Business assistant professor who conducted the survey, in a statement. “In the Great Recession, it took over a year for the employment rate to decline 5 percentage points. Our estimates suggest that the employment rate has fallen more than twice as much in the last month.”

When the last VCU-Arizona State survey was released on April 17, an estimated 24 million jobs had been lost, amounting to a 12% decline in the national employment rate. The survey released Monday indicates an employment rate of 55.8% among working-age adults during the week of April 12 through April 18.

This is the second Real Time Population Survey that Blandin and Alexander Bick, an associate professor of economics at Arizona State, conducted. The second survey indicates that many unemployed workers have also stopped seeking replacement jobs.

“Even many of those who still have jobs are earning less,” Blandin added. “We find that 42% of those who were working in February have experienced a loss in earnings.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts the Current Population Survey once per month and reports results with a three-week delay. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics results for the same week, April 12 through April 18, won’t be released until May 8.

A major difference between the results of the first and second surveys show that declines in employment were initially concentrated among women, but have shifted toward men during the most recent reporting week. However, older and less-educated workers still remain hard-hit.

The next round of survey results will be released on May 8, covering the period from April 26 through May 2.

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