The year 2020 definitely had some silent echoes of recession, but nobody has ever visualized the picture of the economy it has turned towards today. While the world is facing a major slowdown due to COVID-19 effects, it has also unanimously added to the upsurging rates of unemployment globally. This has pushed the economies to resume their domestic operations despite the potential existence of the virus. In the meanwhile, the US economy seems to show at least some ‘good signs’ in between the pandemic angst.
The unemployment rate of the nation has fallen from 14.7% in May to 13.3%, while simultaneously adding 2.5 million jobs. The economy was paralyzed by a viral epidemic with surprisingly positive numbers for some time in the recession. The increase in jobs in May suggests that companies are quickly recalling workers as countries resume their economy. Other evidence also showed that the job market collapse caused by the coronavirus has already hit the bottom. As a result, the applicants’ number claiming for unemployment benefits has also witnessed a decline for consecutively 9 weeks.
Overall job cuts have widened the economic imbalance that has disproportionately damaged minorities and low-educated workers. The unemployment rate for white Americans was 12.4% in May, but 17.6% for Hispanics and 16.8% for African Americans. Despite the remarkable achievements in May, it could take months for everyone who lost their job in April and March to again find one. Some economists predict that interest rates will remain double-digit until the November elections and next year. American workers suffered another serious blow in May, and for the first time since the Great Depression millions of jobs were lost to a viral epidemic, and the unemployment rate fell to near 20% or even more than 20%.
Economists predicted that the government is about to report that the employer lost more than 8.5 million people last month, exceeding 21.4 million in March and April last month. Since the corona virus was strengthened almost three months ago, the number expected to increase significantly is nearly 30 million times more than three times the number of jobs lost during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Like the epidemic itself, economic shocks have widened the economic imbalance, which is unbalanced among ethnic minorities and low-educated workers.
According to a weekly survey by the Census Bureau, more than 55% of African Americans said they lost income since mid-March compared to 43% of whites since mid-March. This figure was further 60% for Hispanics. The epidemic has temporarily removed jobs in restaurants, hotels, retail chains and other low-wage industries. But the current situations are gradually expected to improve from the first quarter of the next year. Till then, we are bound to learn to ‘safely survive’ with the virus!
