The 6,606,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance filed between April 1 and 7 dropped slightly from revised, record-high 6,867,000 new applicants during the previous week, extending an unprecedented surge in layoffs.
More than 10 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in the final two weeks of March as businesses were forced to shutter to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. As of Thursday morning, there are more than 432,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S., claiming more than 14,000 lives, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.
The shutdowns of restaurants, bars, storefronts and almost all social gathering places around the U.S. has plunged the country into a deep retraction following more than a decade of steady employment and economic growth.