Owensboro, Ky., has enjoyed the closest thing to a V-shaped recovery of any city in the country. Its jobless rate soared in April but by June was back to pre-pandemic levels.
Fewer jobs were added to the economy last month even as the unemployment rate fell to 8.4%. Job growth has slowed since June in a sign of what could be a long and painful recovery from the recession.
Another 881,000 people applied for state unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department says. That's down from the previous week, but the report comes with an asterisk.
Job postings for entry-level positions popular with new college grads fell by 73%, compared with before COVID-19 hit. And for the class of 2020 who have landed jobs it's often been a strange journey.
Millions of Americans who lost jobs during the pandemic are in danger of having their incomes cut for a second time. The sudden halt in payments would be felt in households and throughout the economy.
Another 1.5 million people file for unemployment benefits for the first time, but the number who are continuing to seek the payments continues to decline as workers return to their jobs.
Lainy Morse, a preschool teacher, dreads going back to a classroom filled with kids who don't understand hand-washing or social distancing. And she'd make less than she does on unemployment.
The pain in the job market continues as an additional 1.5 million sought unemployment benefits last week. In the past 12 weeks, more than 44 million new claims have been filed.
U.S. employers unexpectedly added jobs last month as the unemployment rate declined, signs that people are returning to work as states reopen their economies. President Trump celebrated the news.
The Labor Department says about 1.9 million people filed for unemployment last week, but there are some signs that people may be returning to their jobs.
Amazon has hired 175,000 temporary workers to deal with a spike in online shopping during the coronavirus pandemic. Now it's offering most of them permanent jobs.
More than 1 in 4 U.S. workers have lost their jobs since coronavirus shutdowns began. Last week, an additional 2.1 million people filed for unemployment benefits.
Keri Belcher has worked in the oil and gas industry. But she's considering switching careers — even if it means less time outdoors, which is what attracted her to geology in the first place.
The United States is still losing jobs at an alarming pace two months after the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Another 2.4 million people filed claims for jobless benefits last week.
Cynthia Murray's hours had already been cut and she was worried about her health in the pandemic. Then a man shouted at her. "I just really felt uncomfortable," she says. So she went on unpaid leave.
The hourly pay at Amazon is much lower than what Theodore Johnson earned as a massage therapist, but the new job comes with a key benefit he didn't have before.
David Edwards was going to play the mascot for the Quad Cities River Bandits in Iowa. But the baseball season was canceled and he also lost a second job. "I feel very scared about my future," he says.
A few months ago, things were looking up for Latinos: wages were rising and unemployment was at a record low. Now, Latinos are the worst hit among all races: a record high unemployment rate of 18.9%.
Before the coronavirus crisis, there were briefly more women on American payrolls than men. That's no longer true. Women accounted for 55% of the increase in job losses last month.
U.S. employers shed a record number of jobs in April, as the unemployment rate climbed to the highest since the Great Depression. The coronavirus crisis has locked down much of the economy.
The Labor Department is expected to report the U.S. lost millions of jobs last month due to the coronavirus. Unemployment likely jumped to its highest level since the Great Depression.
Michelle Lee, a Safeway cashier, wishes customers would be more patient about shortages. "They can't understand why they keep coming back and we don't have" items such as toilet paper, she says.
