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Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

374 points by treyfitty 7y ago

stupandaus 7y ago
Building on my analysis from last week: 1. This week's 6.6M new jobless claims represents ~4% of the estimated ~160-165M US Workforce. 2. This is incremental to the 3.3M new jobless claims filed week ending 3/21, totaling ~10M total jobless claims in the past 2 weeks. 3. The US unemployment rate was ~3.5% as of EOM February [1], so cumulatively that means we've hit ~10% unemployment as of EOW 3/28 (~10M incremental jobless claims = ~6%). That number is likely low and continuing to increase, as new jobless claims do not account for gig workers and many state unemployment sites have been inundated by these claims resulting in site crashes and people unable to file claims. In addition, layoffs have almost certainly continued between 3/28 and today. 4. The consensus estimate for this week's jobless claims was ~3.76M jobless claims, and the 6.6M actual claims blow the consensus estimate out of the water. That said, some analysts such as Goldman Sachs had estimated ~5.5M joblesss claims. Goldman Sachs estimates that unemployment will peak at ~15%. [2] [1] https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/31/coronavirus-update-goldman-sees-15percent-jobless-rate-followed-by-record-rebound.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/31/coronavirus-update-goldman-s...
- treyfitty 7y ago
  The forecasted unemployment rate is weird: economists are not forecasting a major increase for April 03s release. Do you happen to know why? https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
  - itamarst 7y ago
    April unemployment is probably only measured mid-March, so it predates all these claims.
  - hurricanetc 7y ago
    They do the monthly survey in the middle of the month. Most of the state shutdowns happened after the surveys were completed. Don’t ask me why they don’t just use the weekly numbers.
    - makomk 7y ago
      The weekly numbers are unemployment benefit claims, whereas I think the monthly employment statistics are based on surveying the population and counting the actual number of people who are employed, seeking work, etc.
      - hurricanetc 7y ago
        Yeah I understand the distinction but the weekly numbers capture much of the same information and are more accurate. The monthly survey is just something we do because we’ve done it for a long time.
    - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
      The weekly numbers are number of newly unemployed. The unemployment survey is measuring how many people are currently unemployed. The former is correlated with the rate of change in the latter, but is not the same thing.
- airstrike 7y ago
  I'm also hearing this morning that we've hit the 10% mark. I also heard the same economist say "The economy is collapsing, and it's a global collapse". I don't even need coffee to be alert the rest of the day...
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    Would you have a link to more reading from that economist about this?
    - airstrike 7y ago
      Not really, sadly. I just heard him on an internal conference call we have twice a week, so don't really have a link to provide but don't think he's published his views in writing just yet. I expect a lot of similar predictions to come out now that the unemployment claims number is out (as of ~1 hour ago) For general views of very smart people on the economy and markets, I recommend Bloomberg Surveillance every morning on the Bloomberg app, radio and on your favorite podcast app
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        Ah I see, okay thank you.
        wayoutthere 7y ago
        This kind of info usually circulates in the corporate world for a week before it hits the wider media zeitgeist. My company has been holding weekly analyst briefings on what to expect. Right now, the sources I have say to expect to be WFH and "socially distanced" until July or August at the earliest. Restaurants will probably start slowly opening back up around then, but conferences or sporting events are going to be cancelled through at least the end of the year. A single sporting event or conference can lead to thousands of new infections, so none of that stuff is coming back for a long time. Past that, we were told to expect 3 waves of economic pain: one right now when everyone loses their job, another big layoff cycle in 3 months once companies that can WFH start to adjust for structural changes, and a third wave near the end of the year after people start to seriously curtail consumption in response to the first two waves and global demand falls off a cliff. This information has been getting priced into the market for a few weeks, so none of it is new. But these numbers are just starting to hit the wider media and your average American is starting to panic because we're looking at a decade or more of hurt before this is all over.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  Goldman Sach may estimate the unemployment rate peaking at 15%, but the Fed said it could reach 32% by summer.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Data released in New York alone is that they are getting 250-300k successful initial claim calls per day, and many people are not successful. This is going to be the most profund economic event of our lives. Hopefully more like 1893 than 1929.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 ^ for anyone who doesn't know, 1893 seemed to be the first of many Argentine financial crises, caused by a wheat crop failure, which caused a negative feedback loop as (mostly) European investors pulled out of South Africa and Australia. The effects spilled over into the US and UK financial systems, led to runs on the banks, and caused a severe recession for 2 years.
- cm2187 7y ago
  And also there are still a few states that aren't in lockdown yet. And meanwhile markets are up!
- vekker 7y ago
  That's not too bad... here in Belgium we currently have half of the working population on unemployment benefits.
  - stupandaus 7y ago
    The US' unemployment rate was much, much lower than many western European unemployment rates prior to coronavirus, so it doesn't make sense to compare the absolute number here - instead you should be comparing relative figures. The US' unemployment rate has tripled in the past 2 weeks based on this analysis.
  - schrijver 7y ago
    Then again for the part of that which is related to corona it’s mostly through the mechanism of temporary unemployment, where the state takes over paying part of the paycheck for the duration of the time that the workers can’t work, and they are expected to return to their jobs once the lockdown is over. Of course not all companies will survive post-corona but it seems like an approach that potentially better preserves the social and economic tissue. cf https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/business/france-coronavirus-unemployment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/business/france-coronavir... (not about Belgium, but the approach is common to multiple EU countries)
    - ivankolev 7y ago
      Canada too, up to 75% of the payroll, for companies with 30%+ decline in revenue. It will take weeks to roll though, it is all promises as of now
- paganel 7y ago
  Afaik Norway was one of the first countries that made similar numbers public, as about a week ago they had announced that unemployment had risen from app. 2% to 10.4%. The article is here [1]. My ballpark estimate is GDP going down by 20-30% for the next two quarters at least. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/norway-jobless-rate-soars-to-highest-since-wwii-as-crisis-hits https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/norway-jo...
  - onefuncman 7y ago
    Austria 8.1% Feb 2020 -> 12.2% Mar 2020 Philippines 4.5% -> 5.3% Belarus 0.3% -> 0.2% (???) per https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate Israel 18.6% 3/24 to 24.4% today - https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-unemployment-in-israel-up-to-186-1001323094 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-unemployment-in-israel-up... and https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/The-number-of-unemployed-in-Israel-tops-1-million-for-the-first-time-623151 https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/The-number-of-unemployed... I'm not sure why Israel has their numbers available so quickly.
    - myth_drannon 7y ago
      Belarus, I suspect agriculture sector is working 110% to provide more food to Russia which started to have food runs.
- matwood 7y ago
  Correct. Todays number isn't even much of a surprise, although it's still shocking to see. I thought the consensus estimate was way too low. Some analysts have been kicking around 20%-30% unemployment before this is all over.
  - jiofih 7y ago
    The US economy looks more like a pyramid scheme than ever.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      The virtuous cycle provided by a functioning market is not a pyramid scheme. Not even close. Pyramid schemes transfer wealth from the bottom to the top while creating no new additional wealth. America is creating tons of additional wealth and how much each gets from that wealth is proportional to one's leverage and one's leverage is generally proportional to how much one is able to contribute to wealth generation (in either talent or useful capital)
      - jiofih 7y ago
        “Virtuous”. It is fueled by artificial growth. It demands growth and makes sustainable, stable businesses a liability. It is absurd to see companies folding barely two weeks into hardship.
        matwood 7y ago
        > It is absurd to see companies folding barely two weeks into hardship. Why? Companies sitting on tons of cash is a bad thing. That cash either needs to be invested through hiring, buying equipment, etc...or paid out to the shareholders (who then spend, invest, etc...). Sitting on cash traps capital that could be doing something else to create value. And before you say companies need to plan better, companies do plan for downturns. But, no company plans for their revenues to go to near zero overnight.
      - buzzkillington 7y ago
- op03 7y ago
  Is there a state wise breakdown? I would guess NYC is contributing a big chunk, and if things turn around there in a month or two should be okay.
  - japhyr 7y ago
    Do you have any reason to think we're not going to see the situation in NYC play out in numerous other US cities over the coming weeks and months?
    - op03 7y ago
      Not really. I have been thinking its going to play out like China, Italy, Spain etc where certain regions take disproportionate hits. Texas and California don't seem to have been hit as hard as NY-NJ. So was just wondering if the unemployment filings have jumped equally in all 3.
      - stevenwoo 7y ago
        Everything that is non essential in California is closed and only companies that can function with only working from home are still operating AFAIK. It doesn't matter how bad the outbreak is here, we've been on a shutdown for longer than anywhere in the USA, at least here in Northern California. Many restaurants have closed, only some are open for take out, but that probably depends on area. This last week they finally told many construction/lawn maintenance workers to stay home as well, depending upon circumstances.
      - redisman 7y ago
        Florida could worse, they just shut things down yesterday(!) and they have more cases than WA today which has been effectively shut down for a month or so.
      - deepakhj 7y ago
        Most businesses/restaurants are closed here. I would imagine the #'s are the same.
- SilasX 7y ago
  To save everyone the search, here's the link to parent's analysis from last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22693012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22693012
- doh 7y ago
  This is just a personal opinion, but I think ~15% unemployment peak is far too optimistic. I believe that 50-75% of restaurants will never reopen. 20-35% of small to mid-size hotels, venues, spas will declare bankruptcy within this year. Both employ a lot of people. So I'm afraid the number is going to much higher, maybe even double.
  - shostack 7y ago
    So much of this depends on how the administration handles this. I don't have great confidence based on how they've handled things so far.
    - redisman 7y ago
      Probably most small(and medium, and big) businesses can hold on for a month or two at this rate but failure rate is going to approach 100% as time goes on.
    - doh 7y ago
      Very true. I spoke to a few economists and they believe there are going to be two or three waves of CARE ACT-like packages. It's easy to criticize the government without having to bear the responsibility but I wish they did this much earlier, with more force to bring confidence to the people rather than markets. I spoke with a branch manager at a bank day before they announced the extended timeline for shut down up until end of April. She was cheerful because she believed that this will be over in two weeks. I tried to gently tell her that I believe we are looking at months (two at minimum), not weeks of lockdown and even that might be very optimistic. She didn't take it well. People are confused and scared. I do wish the govs (local and federal) would be the leaders everyone needs them to be, but unfortunately, that's not yet happening (there are some exceptions, but very few unfortunately).
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    Half of all restaurants in the US will not reopen? Multi-year depression?
    - 7y ago
- apatters 7y ago
  If the unemployment rate continues to rise at this pace (about 7% every two weeks), it will match the peak during the Great Depression (25%) around the end of April. That's 40 million people who will have no income and likely no health care in the middle of a pandemic. Not sure how to process this information honestly.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - trhway 7y ago
    >That's 40 million people who will have no income and likely no health care in the middle of a pandemic. if the government were to help regular people that would be say $1T/40M = $25K - one can survive a month or two on that (and those money would have naturally trickled promptly up thus also supporting the top of the economy - corporations, banks, etc. - instead of being directly accumulated there like in the current trickle down approach). My understanding that is what they ultimately did in Great Depression - by way of public works and rudimentary safety net - though the things had to get really bad before they did it, and one can only wonder how much things have to get bad this time.
    - blueline 7y ago
      >$25K - one can survive a month or two on that US median yearly household income is about $61k
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    You cannot simply extrapolate trends ad infinitum. You have to look at the vulnerable industries, and assume percentage of those jobs will be lost, up to the limit of that industry. ...but certainly, the longer everyone stays home, the more industries will be sucked into the void. Ultimately, we will have no choice but to advise people to go back to their lives, despite the risks. The government does not have the ability to bail out every single industry in the economy.
    - 7y ago
- blackRust 7y ago
  You may be interested in these predictions: * https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3922/what-will-be-the-us-unemployment-rate-for-march-2020/ https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3922/what-will-be-the-us... * https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3933/what-will-be-the-us-unemployment-rate-for-april-2020/ https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3933/what-will-be-the-us...
treyfitty 7y ago
Expected 3M. This new figure is about 10x financial crisis high.
- bearjaws 7y ago
  And they want us to believe that it will be ok because of a $1200 check and state unemployment benefits....
  - treyfitty 7y ago
    Yeah... $1,200 advanced from next years tax return nonetheless. Normative economics (how should things be allocated equitably) are frowned upon, but it’s clear that our system needs to be refactored. The fact that Bernie Sanders has only a 1% chance of winning the primaries show the severe disconnect between what we want and what we need.
    - anoonmoose 7y ago
      I have heard people say that it was an advance but found conflicting info, can you source?
      - enraged_camel 7y ago
        It is misinformation. It becomes an advance if your normal income suddenly skyrockets to a point where you wouldn’t have been eligible for the $1,200. That won’t be the case for almost anybody.
        treyfitty 7y ago
        You have it backwards. If and only if your income sky rockets, you don’t get it taken out next year. If your income is high now and you don’t get $1,200, you’ll get it when you pay next year under the condition your income drops. For everyone else, it’s a simple advance. > For example, a single taxpayer with $100,000 in 2019 income would not receive an advance rebate but would receive the $1,200 credit on their 2020 return if their income for the year fell below the phaseout. On the other hand, a single taxpayer with $35,000 in income receives a $1,200 advance rebate but would not have to pay the rebate back on the 2020 return if they make $100,000 this year. https://taxfoundation.org/cares-act-senate-coronavirus-bill-economic-relief-plan/ https://taxfoundation.org/cares-act-senate-coronavirus-bill-...
bearjaws 7y ago
My job has been inundated with applications from people who are not even in tech in any way (think like barbers & home depot workers). I see now why so many companies use automation to filter out resumes.
- whb07 7y ago
  To what type of positions ? So like a barber for a random secretary or mail room etc? Or just all up and down the chain
  - bearjaws 7y ago
    To Software Engineer, lvl 3 support, Data Scientist, etc. Roles that they would almost certainly fail in without previous experience.
    - dakna 7y ago
      One of the requirements for unemployment benefits is that you are actually looking for work and can proof a certain number of applications per week. It makes sense to just randomly apply as long as the applications count towards the minimum number needed to stay eligible.
      - bearjaws 7y ago
        I am aware of this, but that doesn't mean people should waste others time, and if it gets bad enough I am going to put automation in front of it. Everyone loses in these scenarios.
        whitebread 7y ago
        This sounds like an unfortunate domino effect, where our legislation forces the unemployed to jump through ridiculous hoops, and in desperation to get $$ they start passing out resumes like hotcakes. To me they are a symptom of a broken system, and I want to direct my ire at the government rather than them.
generalpass 7y ago
I hope that tech industry employees do not feel immune to this. I encourage you to take a look at your customer base and think very critically about where that money is actually coming from.
- itgoon 7y ago
  Yep, our business requires other business. Without users, servers are complicated heaters that require cooling.
- baron_harkonnen 7y ago
  I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance for tech employees partially because tech thrived in the 2008 crisis. Investors looking to make high risk/reward investments had no where else to go but SV. If you aren't old enough to remember the dot-com boom it's understandable you might feel tech is invincible. Tech will not be insulated from this and in general I think we'll see a major contraction of the tech labour force. There are so many non-tech companies that want in on the VC and other investor money so they are rapidly building out expensive tech teams to create illusion that they are the next tech giant. Not to mention the other weakness in tech: RSUs as the main factor of total comp. If the market continues to drop, especially if it hits hards, a huge number of SV workers will be getting automatic pay cuts due to rapidly decreased values in RSU. A lot of expensive real estate in SV is paid for by RSUs. This crisis is going to be insane.
  - robszumski 7y ago
    VCs, possibly. The larger tech companies are selling 1 and 3 year deals for software, which will see some impact, but largely distance them from the deep V because of the length of the terms.
    - redisman 7y ago
      Sure, but what if you sold your 3 year deal to an airline that is now effectively stuck in bankruptcy for the next 10 years. Or any of the 100 other industries/sub-industries that are completely shut down right now. If I can't afford to pay rent on my office I sure as heck am not paying Microsoft either.
diafygi 7y ago
Keep in mind that state unemployment websites and call centers are often overloaded and there are many complaints that people can't even file in the first place. It's is highly likely that these high numbers continue for additional weeks because all the people who couldn't get through will manage to get through in upcoming weeks.
PragmaticPulp 7y ago
Unemployment benefits have been significantly expanded under the Coronavirus aid bill. The benefit amounts will sound small if you're living in an expensive city like SF or Seattle, but $600/week from the federal government and a similar amount from state unemployment insurance means that unemployment benefits can pay up to an equivalent of $50-60K/year right now. That goes a long way in most parts of the country, especially when you're stuck at home. Of course companies are going to opt to shift people to unemployment benefits while they're forced into downtime. In some situations, people can actually earn more from unemployment benefits by being laid off due to some hasty oversights in the aid package (Reference: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/how-unemployed-workers-could-get-more-than-100percent-of-their-paycheck.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/how-unemployed-workers-could... ). This doesn't account for lost benefits or the risk involved in losing a job, but it could disincentivize people returning to work if it means their income will go down. Of the many people I know who have been “laid off”, all of them have been told they’ll be first in line to be re-hired the moment quarantine ends. If a business can’t make money, it makes more sense for them to let employees collect unemployment during the downtime than to overextend the business’s balance sheet. During normal times, this is a common tactic for seasonal businesses. I have friends in seasonal tourism industries who received training on applying for unemployment benefits during their annual off-season layoffs each year. They even have an explicit system for tracking seniority in the re-hires. Of course, the longer this quarantine lasts, the more likely their businesses are to disappear before they can re-open. Unfortunately we won’t know this number for many months. For now, the initial unemployment claims number can't discriminate between jobs that have been temporarily paused and jobs that have been eliminated.
- aluminussoma 7y ago
  What will the employees, in the US at least, do for health insurance? A pandemic is when you need it. These employees will be strained to pay for COBRA. I fear that we will see revolutions in countries where this is not contained, from either a health or economic perspective. An old saying is that you should buy stocks when there is blood in the streets. I hope that doesn't become literal.
  - 7y ago
swalsh 7y ago
I've seen a lot of small businesses do the math, and realize that with the additional $600 provided by the stimulus bill, it actually works out better for some lower paid workers to lay them off (and presumably rehire later). I wonder if this might explain higher than expected numbers.
- boringg 7y ago
  Maybe, but demand just evaporated and might not return so why put the risk on their balance sheet if the fed govt will take it on in the meantime.
- themagician 7y ago
  We just did that yesterday. It actually works out better for a lot of people. The break even point in California is around $25/hr. If you made under $25/hr it pays more to be unemployed. For some people who were part time at $15/hr or less they will actually see paychecks double. And you no longer have to even be looking for work to keep getting the money, at least through July 31.
- 12xo 7y ago
  This was the point of the $600. It keeps people afloat and home.
- redisman 7y ago
  That and almost no business can keep paying employees when literally no income is coming in for a month or three.
hopfog 7y ago
This chart is just getting crazier and crazier: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUmW1PgXYAEdggm?format=png&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUmW1PgXYAEdggm?format=png&name=...
A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
The odd thing to me about it is that futures seem largely positive. Is it because the CAREs act or dropped labor is supposed to equal money not spent and thus meant to shield companies ( and investors )? I honestly do not get how market interprets it as good news.
- kasey_junk 7y ago
  They think it will require more stimulus money.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    And they're confident the gov't will provide that.
- blago 7y ago
  Not necessarily interpreted as "good news", probably more like "already priced in".
  - realmod 7y ago
    The market is just currently confused and will soon undoubtedly go down. 6.6m this week is just insane. Hopefully we'll see some good news regarding the virus soon.
- generalpass 7y ago
  > The odd thing to me about it is that futures seem largely positive. Is it because the CAREs act or dropped labor is supposed to equal money not spent and thus meant to shield companies ( and investors )? I honestly do not get how market interprets it as good news. Personally, I think things are happening too fast to gauge what investor activity is actually reacting too. There can be big movers who are still in decision-making stages and their actions have yet to be made, or they acted hastily and sold, then come back and repurchase, etc.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Hopefully most of these people will be re-employed once the crisis has subsided a bit and our ability to handle the likely echo peaks of infections happen over the next year increases. There will certainly be starts and stops as the highly interdependent parts of the economy try to get streamlined again in a rather herky-jerky manner. No doubt some companies and maybe even large portion of industries collapse. Also companies that are healthy might take this situation as an opportunity to cut away what they consider to be dead weight under the cover of the crisis. Unemployment numbers, if we're lucky, will crash quickly but there's going to be a long tail on the recovery.
yalogin 7y ago
How much of this is temporary and how much will be long term? Also how does the stimulus help here?
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  No one knows. This is an entirely unprecedented event.
williesleg 7y ago
It's a pandemic, of course that's gonna happen. Can't wait for the news when it's over and we're all back to work. Or is the China Fake News gonna ignore that?
treyfitty 7y ago
For those living in cities that are locked down, what do yall do about daycare? In NYC, my daycare isn't reimbursing fees, so we're continuing to be charged with a promise of "if insurance pays out, we'll pass it down." With 2 kids, that’s $5,000. Assuming they’re closed for 3 months total, that’s $15,000 down the drain. Now, I get that they're a small business, but their problem is that they can't exactly layoff their daycare workers because the governing body for daycares are pretty strict and getting new employees take a lot of time. On top of that, they have rents due. So, I get it. But this begs a more fundamental question: When are we going to start pressuring insurance companies and rent-seekers to provide relief? Time and time again, all the bailouts of the past seem to benefit them, but during a time when we need insurance companies to pay out for business interruption instead of claiming "act of God, we exclude pandemics...etc.," we fail to bring them into the conversation.
- base698 7y ago
  At my company the kids have become an addition to our meetings. Babies on laps and toddlers drawing on the whiteboard in the background. It's definitely making changes to productivity and I feel for the new parents.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    It's one of those moments where I'm glad my kids are past the toddler stage. I'm in 'bad parent' mode right now and letting them have entirely too much screen time and too little direct supervision, but at 7 & 9 they can handle being mostly on their own all day as long as they have something to do. Biggest problem is that they'd not choose schoolwork on their own :) This too shall pass, and they probably won't be too much worse for wear as a result. I tend to think primary school is 80% day care anyway :)
- technics256 7y ago
  The best situation all around here possibly is the concept of "Kurzarbeit", or short work system, that exists in Germany (Denmark also has a similar one, I believe). It basically allows employers to reduce hours they pay workers, while the gov't helps cover the shortfall to the employee, up to some maximum amount. This prevents companies from having to layoff people, and allows them to pickup the slack and rehire everyone again when things get better.
lquist 7y ago
Any numbers on what is happening for software engineering unemployment?
- base698 7y ago
  Winter is coming.
- nkozyra 7y ago
  I don't think you really need to distinguish between industries at this point. It's all bad.
  - lquist 7y ago
    I doubt that software eng unemployment is at 10% right now. Looking at BLS data from previous recessions shows that software eng doesn't get hit nearly as hard as other professions.
    - nkozyra 7y ago
      Right now? No. But this is going to cascade.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    Is it really? I only have two direct data points, but I (government contractor) and my brother (large company) are both still fully employed with no immediate risk of unemployment, reduction in salary, etc. Just look at the numbers. 20% unemployment, while horrific in both human and economic terms, also implies 80% employment. When nearly everyone in the hospitality industry is out of a job, I have to think that some other industry is doing relatively better or the numbers would be even worse.
    - Royalaid 7y ago
      Just go look on Twitter, in the Clojure hashtag at least, something that rarely sees people needing jobs, there have been a hire me thread, a several individual posts for people asking work, and more and more post about people getting laid off. This will just continue to increase as the virus does it's thing.
jiofih 7y ago
Is the title incorrect? Reading the article it says an additional 3M, for a total of six million
- makomk 7y ago
  If I'm understanding the article correctly, the title is correct - there were 6.6M initial unemployment claims filed in the last week alone, which is about 3M more than were filed in the previous week. This would give a total of about 10M new unemployment claims over the two-week period.
aazaa 7y ago
There's a sense that once "lockdown" ends, thing go back to normal. In other words, the "V" shaped recovery is the dominant mental model. Should that not materialize, the disappointment and anger will reach level not seen in most people's lifetimes. One reason the V-scenario might not play out is that the US still doesn't have a handle on the testing problem. Without testing, you have no way to estimate the danger to the public of normalizing economic activity. At the first sign of a new outbreak, the entire lockdown cycle will repeat. Too few people will have gained immunity, and the disease is far too contagious and deadly to take any chances. We still don't know what "immunity" looks like at any rate. Alternatively, the lies about testing may have burned people so badly by the time the "all clear" is given (whatever that looks like), that few will believe it. The effect would be a national strike/boycott.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  > Should that not materialize And soon. A great many people have a low tolerance for indefinite lockdowns. The longer we go without any kind of plan, the more likely it becomes that people will begin disregarding it. I already see that the amount of traffic on the roads is increasing over time. What we need are leaders, and it's glaringly obvious that in most states we don't have that. During peacetime nobody notices, but when the SHTF the leadership vacuum is palpable.
tamaharbor 7y ago
Percent infected = 0.012%; Percent unemployed = 2.1%; I hope it is all worth it.
greedo 7y ago
The long term scars of this upcoming Depression will be unlike anything anyone under 70 has experienced. And the scars will be long lasting. My mother in law used to use Cool Whip containers for leftovers. When we'd visit, she'd send us home with food packed in them. Usually stuff like mashed potatoes, but often good stuff too. And when we'd visit her in a few weeks/month, she'd ask where her containers were. This was a generation that saved EVERYTHING. The idea of throwing something out was disrespectful. Waste was the worst of many mortal sins. All because of the Great Depression.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  A 70 year old today was born in 1950. What have they experienced that's worse than this? I think this is going to be unlike anything in living memory.
  - kazen44 7y ago
    my grandfather was a teen during ww2. This behaviour was common with him aswell. Saving even the bones of chicken/cows to make stock. when a was a smile child and was nagging him for something to eat, he used to tell me i have never experienced hunger, only "trek". (which would be roughly translated to snackish).
    - greedo 7y ago
      My father was a butcher's son during the Depression. Whenever someone in the family would say "I'm starving!" he would get mad and explain that you had no idea what you were talking about.
  - greedo 7y ago
    My point is that unless you're really old, this is probably one of the worst things you'll experience. Of course that's a Western-centric view. Off the top of my head I think the Cultural Revolution would be worse, the Partition of India would be up there, and the incessant warring and instability in Africa as decolonization occurred.
- 7y ago
godelzilla 7y ago
Now let's see how the gamblers and con artists who run health care can handle an uninsured nation in plague... smh.
cycop 7y ago
Private health care will try to collect on all of their costs in regards to this pandemic, if the US government allows that it will kill the economy even further. How long until the US Government nationalizes Health Care?
nyxtom 7y ago
Is there any data on these numbers broken down by industry and profession?
Der_Einzige 7y ago
Yet you wouldn't know it based on the stock market. Where is this collapse you all talk about? Donald Pump and Powell will just use infinite QE and monetary policy to fix all of our problems. After all, the US Dollar is still strong due to a liquidity shortage world-wide from everyone being desperate to convert domestic money to USD Until that liquidity crisis dries up within the world, stonks seem only go up. Money printer goes brrrrr. I've never seen markets behave so effing irrationally before. Investors are pants on head stupid at a level that boggels my mind. "markets can be irrational longer than you can stay solvent" is being proven to be sage advice with this pandemic.

374 points by treyfitty 7y ago

Building on my analysis from last week: 1. This week's 6.6M new jobless claims represents ~4% of the estimated ~160-165M US Workforce. 2. This is incremental to the 3.3M new jobless claims filed week ending 3/21, totaling ~10M total jobless claims in the past 2 weeks. 3. The US unemployment rate was ~3.5% as of EOM February [1], so cumulatively that means we've hit ~10% unemployment as of EOW 3/28 (~10M incremental jobless claims = ~6%). That number is likely low and continuing to increase, as new jobless claims do not account for gig workers and many state unemployment sites have been inundated by these claims resulting in site crashes and people unable to file claims. In addition, layoffs have almost certainly continued between 3/28 and today. 4. The consensus estimate for this week's jobless claims was ~3.76M jobless claims, and the 6.6M actual claims blow the consensus estimate out of the water. That said, some analysts such as Goldman Sachs had estimated ~5.5M joblesss claims. Goldman Sachs estimates that unemployment will peak at ~15%. [2] [1] https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/31/coronavirus-update-goldman-sees-15percent-jobless-rate-followed-by-record-rebound.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/31/coronavirus-update-goldman-s...

treyfitty 7y ago
The forecasted unemployment rate is weird: economists are not forecasting a major increase for April 03s release. Do you happen to know why? https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
- itamarst 7y ago
  April unemployment is probably only measured mid-March, so it predates all these claims.
- hurricanetc 7y ago
  They do the monthly survey in the middle of the month. Most of the state shutdowns happened after the surveys were completed. Don’t ask me why they don’t just use the weekly numbers.
  - makomk 7y ago
    The weekly numbers are unemployment benefit claims, whereas I think the monthly employment statistics are based on surveying the population and counting the actual number of people who are employed, seeking work, etc.
    - hurricanetc 7y ago
      Yeah I understand the distinction but the weekly numbers capture much of the same information and are more accurate. The monthly survey is just something we do because we’ve done it for a long time.
  - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
    The weekly numbers are number of newly unemployed. The unemployment survey is measuring how many people are currently unemployed. The former is correlated with the rate of change in the latter, but is not the same thing.
airstrike 7y ago
I'm also hearing this morning that we've hit the 10% mark. I also heard the same economist say "The economy is collapsing, and it's a global collapse". I don't even need coffee to be alert the rest of the day...
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  Would you have a link to more reading from that economist about this?
  - airstrike 7y ago
    Not really, sadly. I just heard him on an internal conference call we have twice a week, so don't really have a link to provide but don't think he's published his views in writing just yet. I expect a lot of similar predictions to come out now that the unemployment claims number is out (as of ~1 hour ago) For general views of very smart people on the economy and markets, I recommend Bloomberg Surveillance every morning on the Bloomberg app, radio and on your favorite podcast app
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      Ah I see, okay thank you.
      - wayoutthere 7y ago
        This kind of info usually circulates in the corporate world for a week before it hits the wider media zeitgeist. My company has been holding weekly analyst briefings on what to expect. Right now, the sources I have say to expect to be WFH and "socially distanced" until July or August at the earliest. Restaurants will probably start slowly opening back up around then, but conferences or sporting events are going to be cancelled through at least the end of the year. A single sporting event or conference can lead to thousands of new infections, so none of that stuff is coming back for a long time. Past that, we were told to expect 3 waves of economic pain: one right now when everyone loses their job, another big layoff cycle in 3 months once companies that can WFH start to adjust for structural changes, and a third wave near the end of the year after people start to seriously curtail consumption in response to the first two waves and global demand falls off a cliff. This information has been getting priced into the market for a few weeks, so none of it is new. But these numbers are just starting to hit the wider media and your average American is starting to panic because we're looking at a decade or more of hurt before this is all over.
enraged_camel 7y ago
Goldman Sach may estimate the unemployment rate peaking at 15%, but the Fed said it could reach 32% by summer.
Spooky23 7y ago
Data released in New York alone is that they are getting 250-300k successful initial claim calls per day, and many people are not successful. This is going to be the most profund economic event of our lives. Hopefully more like 1893 than 1929.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 ^ for anyone who doesn't know, 1893 seemed to be the first of many Argentine financial crises, caused by a wheat crop failure, which caused a negative feedback loop as (mostly) European investors pulled out of South Africa and Australia. The effects spilled over into the US and UK financial systems, led to runs on the banks, and caused a severe recession for 2 years.
cm2187 7y ago
And also there are still a few states that aren't in lockdown yet. And meanwhile markets are up!
vekker 7y ago
That's not too bad... here in Belgium we currently have half of the working population on unemployment benefits.
- stupandaus 7y ago
  The US' unemployment rate was much, much lower than many western European unemployment rates prior to coronavirus, so it doesn't make sense to compare the absolute number here - instead you should be comparing relative figures. The US' unemployment rate has tripled in the past 2 weeks based on this analysis.
- schrijver 7y ago
  Then again for the part of that which is related to corona it’s mostly through the mechanism of temporary unemployment, where the state takes over paying part of the paycheck for the duration of the time that the workers can’t work, and they are expected to return to their jobs once the lockdown is over. Of course not all companies will survive post-corona but it seems like an approach that potentially better preserves the social and economic tissue. cf https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/business/france-coronavirus-unemployment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/business/france-coronavir... (not about Belgium, but the approach is common to multiple EU countries)
  - ivankolev 7y ago
    Canada too, up to 75% of the payroll, for companies with 30%+ decline in revenue. It will take weeks to roll though, it is all promises as of now
paganel 7y ago
Afaik Norway was one of the first countries that made similar numbers public, as about a week ago they had announced that unemployment had risen from app. 2% to 10.4%. The article is here [1]. My ballpark estimate is GDP going down by 20-30% for the next two quarters at least. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/norway-jobless-rate-soars-to-highest-since-wwii-as-crisis-hits https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/norway-jo...
- onefuncman 7y ago
  Austria 8.1% Feb 2020 -> 12.2% Mar 2020 Philippines 4.5% -> 5.3% Belarus 0.3% -> 0.2% (???) per https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate Israel 18.6% 3/24 to 24.4% today - https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-unemployment-in-israel-up-to-186-1001323094 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-unemployment-in-israel-up... and https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/The-number-of-unemployed-in-Israel-tops-1-million-for-the-first-time-623151 https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/The-number-of-unemployed... I'm not sure why Israel has their numbers available so quickly.
  - myth_drannon 7y ago
    Belarus, I suspect agriculture sector is working 110% to provide more food to Russia which started to have food runs.
matwood 7y ago
Correct. Todays number isn't even much of a surprise, although it's still shocking to see. I thought the consensus estimate was way too low. Some analysts have been kicking around 20%-30% unemployment before this is all over.
- jiofih 7y ago
  The US economy looks more like a pyramid scheme than ever.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    The virtuous cycle provided by a functioning market is not a pyramid scheme. Not even close. Pyramid schemes transfer wealth from the bottom to the top while creating no new additional wealth. America is creating tons of additional wealth and how much each gets from that wealth is proportional to one's leverage and one's leverage is generally proportional to how much one is able to contribute to wealth generation (in either talent or useful capital)
    - jiofih 7y ago
      “Virtuous”. It is fueled by artificial growth. It demands growth and makes sustainable, stable businesses a liability. It is absurd to see companies folding barely two weeks into hardship.
      - matwood 7y ago
        > It is absurd to see companies folding barely two weeks into hardship. Why? Companies sitting on tons of cash is a bad thing. That cash either needs to be invested through hiring, buying equipment, etc...or paid out to the shareholders (who then spend, invest, etc...). Sitting on cash traps capital that could be doing something else to create value. And before you say companies need to plan better, companies do plan for downturns. But, no company plans for their revenues to go to near zero overnight.
    - buzzkillington 7y ago
op03 7y ago
Is there a state wise breakdown? I would guess NYC is contributing a big chunk, and if things turn around there in a month or two should be okay.
- japhyr 7y ago
  Do you have any reason to think we're not going to see the situation in NYC play out in numerous other US cities over the coming weeks and months?
  - op03 7y ago
    Not really. I have been thinking its going to play out like China, Italy, Spain etc where certain regions take disproportionate hits. Texas and California don't seem to have been hit as hard as NY-NJ. So was just wondering if the unemployment filings have jumped equally in all 3.
    - stevenwoo 7y ago
      Everything that is non essential in California is closed and only companies that can function with only working from home are still operating AFAIK. It doesn't matter how bad the outbreak is here, we've been on a shutdown for longer than anywhere in the USA, at least here in Northern California. Many restaurants have closed, only some are open for take out, but that probably depends on area. This last week they finally told many construction/lawn maintenance workers to stay home as well, depending upon circumstances.
    - redisman 7y ago
      Florida could worse, they just shut things down yesterday(!) and they have more cases than WA today which has been effectively shut down for a month or so.
    - deepakhj 7y ago
      Most businesses/restaurants are closed here. I would imagine the #'s are the same.
SilasX 7y ago
To save everyone the search, here's the link to parent's analysis from last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22693012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22693012
doh 7y ago
This is just a personal opinion, but I think ~15% unemployment peak is far too optimistic. I believe that 50-75% of restaurants will never reopen. 20-35% of small to mid-size hotels, venues, spas will declare bankruptcy within this year. Both employ a lot of people. So I'm afraid the number is going to much higher, maybe even double.
- shostack 7y ago
  So much of this depends on how the administration handles this. I don't have great confidence based on how they've handled things so far.
  - redisman 7y ago
    Probably most small(and medium, and big) businesses can hold on for a month or two at this rate but failure rate is going to approach 100% as time goes on.
  - doh 7y ago
    Very true. I spoke to a few economists and they believe there are going to be two or three waves of CARE ACT-like packages. It's easy to criticize the government without having to bear the responsibility but I wish they did this much earlier, with more force to bring confidence to the people rather than markets. I spoke with a branch manager at a bank day before they announced the extended timeline for shut down up until end of April. She was cheerful because she believed that this will be over in two weeks. I tried to gently tell her that I believe we are looking at months (two at minimum), not weeks of lockdown and even that might be very optimistic. She didn't take it well. People are confused and scared. I do wish the govs (local and federal) would be the leaders everyone needs them to be, but unfortunately, that's not yet happening (there are some exceptions, but very few unfortunately).
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  Half of all restaurants in the US will not reopen? Multi-year depression?
  - 7y ago
apatters 7y ago
If the unemployment rate continues to rise at this pace (about 7% every two weeks), it will match the peak during the Great Depression (25%) around the end of April. That's 40 million people who will have no income and likely no health care in the middle of a pandemic. Not sure how to process this information honestly.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- trhway 7y ago
  >That's 40 million people who will have no income and likely no health care in the middle of a pandemic. if the government were to help regular people that would be say $1T/40M = $25K - one can survive a month or two on that (and those money would have naturally trickled promptly up thus also supporting the top of the economy - corporations, banks, etc. - instead of being directly accumulated there like in the current trickle down approach). My understanding that is what they ultimately did in Great Depression - by way of public works and rudimentary safety net - though the things had to get really bad before they did it, and one can only wonder how much things have to get bad this time.
  - blueline 7y ago
    >$25K - one can survive a month or two on that US median yearly household income is about $61k
- koheripbal 7y ago
  You cannot simply extrapolate trends ad infinitum. You have to look at the vulnerable industries, and assume percentage of those jobs will be lost, up to the limit of that industry. ...but certainly, the longer everyone stays home, the more industries will be sucked into the void. Ultimately, we will have no choice but to advise people to go back to their lives, despite the risks. The government does not have the ability to bail out every single industry in the economy.
  - 7y ago
blackRust 7y ago
You may be interested in these predictions: * https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3922/what-will-be-the-us-unemployment-rate-for-march-2020/ https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3922/what-will-be-the-us... * https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3933/what-will-be-the-us-unemployment-rate-for-april-2020/ https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3933/what-will-be-the-us...

treyfitty 7y ago

Expected 3M. This new figure is about 10x financial crisis high.

bearjaws 7y ago
And they want us to believe that it will be ok because of a $1200 check and state unemployment benefits....
- treyfitty 7y ago
  Yeah... $1,200 advanced from next years tax return nonetheless. Normative economics (how should things be allocated equitably) are frowned upon, but it’s clear that our system needs to be refactored. The fact that Bernie Sanders has only a 1% chance of winning the primaries show the severe disconnect between what we want and what we need.
  - anoonmoose 7y ago
    I have heard people say that it was an advance but found conflicting info, can you source?
    - enraged_camel 7y ago
      It is misinformation. It becomes an advance if your normal income suddenly skyrockets to a point where you wouldn’t have been eligible for the $1,200. That won’t be the case for almost anybody.
      - treyfitty 7y ago
        You have it backwards. If and only if your income sky rockets, you don’t get it taken out next year. If your income is high now and you don’t get $1,200, you’ll get it when you pay next year under the condition your income drops. For everyone else, it’s a simple advance. > For example, a single taxpayer with $100,000 in 2019 income would not receive an advance rebate but would receive the $1,200 credit on their 2020 return if their income for the year fell below the phaseout. On the other hand, a single taxpayer with $35,000 in income receives a $1,200 advance rebate but would not have to pay the rebate back on the 2020 return if they make $100,000 this year. https://taxfoundation.org/cares-act-senate-coronavirus-bill-economic-relief-plan/ https://taxfoundation.org/cares-act-senate-coronavirus-bill-...

bearjaws 7y ago

My job has been inundated with applications from people who are not even in tech in any way (think like barbers & home depot workers). I see now why so many companies use automation to filter out resumes.

whb07 7y ago
To what type of positions ? So like a barber for a random secretary or mail room etc? Or just all up and down the chain
- bearjaws 7y ago
  To Software Engineer, lvl 3 support, Data Scientist, etc. Roles that they would almost certainly fail in without previous experience.
  - dakna 7y ago
    One of the requirements for unemployment benefits is that you are actually looking for work and can proof a certain number of applications per week. It makes sense to just randomly apply as long as the applications count towards the minimum number needed to stay eligible.
    - bearjaws 7y ago
      I am aware of this, but that doesn't mean people should waste others time, and if it gets bad enough I am going to put automation in front of it. Everyone loses in these scenarios.
      - whitebread 7y ago
        This sounds like an unfortunate domino effect, where our legislation forces the unemployed to jump through ridiculous hoops, and in desperation to get $$ they start passing out resumes like hotcakes. To me they are a symptom of a broken system, and I want to direct my ire at the government rather than them.

generalpass 7y ago

I hope that tech industry employees do not feel immune to this. I encourage you to take a look at your customer base and think very critically about where that money is actually coming from.

itgoon 7y ago
Yep, our business requires other business. Without users, servers are complicated heaters that require cooling.
baron_harkonnen 7y ago
I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance for tech employees partially because tech thrived in the 2008 crisis. Investors looking to make high risk/reward investments had no where else to go but SV. If you aren't old enough to remember the dot-com boom it's understandable you might feel tech is invincible. Tech will not be insulated from this and in general I think we'll see a major contraction of the tech labour force. There are so many non-tech companies that want in on the VC and other investor money so they are rapidly building out expensive tech teams to create illusion that they are the next tech giant. Not to mention the other weakness in tech: RSUs as the main factor of total comp. If the market continues to drop, especially if it hits hards, a huge number of SV workers will be getting automatic pay cuts due to rapidly decreased values in RSU. A lot of expensive real estate in SV is paid for by RSUs. This crisis is going to be insane.
- robszumski 7y ago
  VCs, possibly. The larger tech companies are selling 1 and 3 year deals for software, which will see some impact, but largely distance them from the deep V because of the length of the terms.
  - redisman 7y ago
    Sure, but what if you sold your 3 year deal to an airline that is now effectively stuck in bankruptcy for the next 10 years. Or any of the 100 other industries/sub-industries that are completely shut down right now. If I can't afford to pay rent on my office I sure as heck am not paying Microsoft either.

diafygi 7y ago

Keep in mind that state unemployment websites and call centers are often overloaded and there are many complaints that people can't even file in the first place. It's is highly likely that these high numbers continue for additional weeks because all the people who couldn't get through will manage to get through in upcoming weeks.

PragmaticPulp 7y ago

Unemployment benefits have been significantly expanded under the Coronavirus aid bill. The benefit amounts will sound small if you're living in an expensive city like SF or Seattle, but $600/week from the federal government and a similar amount from state unemployment insurance means that unemployment benefits can pay up to an equivalent of $50-60K/year right now. That goes a long way in most parts of the country, especially when you're stuck at home. Of course companies are going to opt to shift people to unemployment benefits while they're forced into downtime. In some situations, people can actually earn more from unemployment benefits by being laid off due to some hasty oversights in the aid package (Reference: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/how-unemployed-workers-could-get-more-than-100percent-of-their-paycheck.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/how-unemployed-workers-could... ). This doesn't account for lost benefits or the risk involved in losing a job, but it could disincentivize people returning to work if it means their income will go down. Of the many people I know who have been “laid off”, all of them have been told they’ll be first in line to be re-hired the moment quarantine ends. If a business can’t make money, it makes more sense for them to let employees collect unemployment during the downtime than to overextend the business’s balance sheet. During normal times, this is a common tactic for seasonal businesses. I have friends in seasonal tourism industries who received training on applying for unemployment benefits during their annual off-season layoffs each year. They even have an explicit system for tracking seniority in the re-hires. Of course, the longer this quarantine lasts, the more likely their businesses are to disappear before they can re-open. Unfortunately we won’t know this number for many months. For now, the initial unemployment claims number can't discriminate between jobs that have been temporarily paused and jobs that have been eliminated.

aluminussoma 7y ago
What will the employees, in the US at least, do for health insurance? A pandemic is when you need it. These employees will be strained to pay for COBRA. I fear that we will see revolutions in countries where this is not contained, from either a health or economic perspective. An old saying is that you should buy stocks when there is blood in the streets. I hope that doesn't become literal.
- 7y ago

swalsh 7y ago

I've seen a lot of small businesses do the math, and realize that with the additional $600 provided by the stimulus bill, it actually works out better for some lower paid workers to lay them off (and presumably rehire later). I wonder if this might explain higher than expected numbers.

boringg 7y ago
Maybe, but demand just evaporated and might not return so why put the risk on their balance sheet if the fed govt will take it on in the meantime.
themagician 7y ago
We just did that yesterday. It actually works out better for a lot of people. The break even point in California is around $25/hr. If you made under $25/hr it pays more to be unemployed. For some people who were part time at $15/hr or less they will actually see paychecks double. And you no longer have to even be looking for work to keep getting the money, at least through July 31.
12xo 7y ago
This was the point of the $600. It keeps people afloat and home.
redisman 7y ago
That and almost no business can keep paying employees when literally no income is coming in for a month or three.

hopfog 7y ago

This chart is just getting crazier and crazier: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUmW1PgXYAEdggm?format=png&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUmW1PgXYAEdggm?format=png&name=...

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

The odd thing to me about it is that futures seem largely positive. Is it because the CAREs act or dropped labor is supposed to equal money not spent and thus meant to shield companies ( and investors )? I honestly do not get how market interprets it as good news.

kasey_junk 7y ago
They think it will require more stimulus money.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  And they're confident the gov't will provide that.
blago 7y ago
Not necessarily interpreted as "good news", probably more like "already priced in".
- realmod 7y ago
  The market is just currently confused and will soon undoubtedly go down. 6.6m this week is just insane. Hopefully we'll see some good news regarding the virus soon.
generalpass 7y ago
> The odd thing to me about it is that futures seem largely positive. Is it because the CAREs act or dropped labor is supposed to equal money not spent and thus meant to shield companies ( and investors )? I honestly do not get how market interprets it as good news. Personally, I think things are happening too fast to gauge what investor activity is actually reacting too. There can be big movers who are still in decision-making stages and their actions have yet to be made, or they acted hastily and sold, then come back and repurchase, etc.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Mountain_Skies 7y ago

Hopefully most of these people will be re-employed once the crisis has subsided a bit and our ability to handle the likely echo peaks of infections happen over the next year increases. There will certainly be starts and stops as the highly interdependent parts of the economy try to get streamlined again in a rather herky-jerky manner. No doubt some companies and maybe even large portion of industries collapse. Also companies that are healthy might take this situation as an opportunity to cut away what they consider to be dead weight under the cover of the crisis. Unemployment numbers, if we're lucky, will crash quickly but there's going to be a long tail on the recovery.

yalogin 7y ago

How much of this is temporary and how much will be long term? Also how does the stimulus help here?

0xffff2 7y ago
No one knows. This is an entirely unprecedented event.

williesleg 7y ago

It's a pandemic, of course that's gonna happen. Can't wait for the news when it's over and we're all back to work. Or is the China Fake News gonna ignore that?

treyfitty 7y ago

For those living in cities that are locked down, what do yall do about daycare? In NYC, my daycare isn't reimbursing fees, so we're continuing to be charged with a promise of "if insurance pays out, we'll pass it down." With 2 kids, that’s $5,000. Assuming they’re closed for 3 months total, that’s $15,000 down the drain. Now, I get that they're a small business, but their problem is that they can't exactly layoff their daycare workers because the governing body for daycares are pretty strict and getting new employees take a lot of time. On top of that, they have rents due. So, I get it. But this begs a more fundamental question: When are we going to start pressuring insurance companies and rent-seekers to provide relief? Time and time again, all the bailouts of the past seem to benefit them, but during a time when we need insurance companies to pay out for business interruption instead of claiming "act of God, we exclude pandemics...etc.," we fail to bring them into the conversation.

base698 7y ago
At my company the kids have become an addition to our meetings. Babies on laps and toddlers drawing on the whiteboard in the background. It's definitely making changes to productivity and I feel for the new parents.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  It's one of those moments where I'm glad my kids are past the toddler stage. I'm in 'bad parent' mode right now and letting them have entirely too much screen time and too little direct supervision, but at 7 & 9 they can handle being mostly on their own all day as long as they have something to do. Biggest problem is that they'd not choose schoolwork on their own :) This too shall pass, and they probably won't be too much worse for wear as a result. I tend to think primary school is 80% day care anyway :)
technics256 7y ago
The best situation all around here possibly is the concept of "Kurzarbeit", or short work system, that exists in Germany (Denmark also has a similar one, I believe). It basically allows employers to reduce hours they pay workers, while the gov't helps cover the shortfall to the employee, up to some maximum amount. This prevents companies from having to layoff people, and allows them to pickup the slack and rehire everyone again when things get better.

lquist 7y ago

Any numbers on what is happening for software engineering unemployment?

base698 7y ago
Winter is coming.
nkozyra 7y ago
I don't think you really need to distinguish between industries at this point. It's all bad.
- lquist 7y ago
  I doubt that software eng unemployment is at 10% right now. Looking at BLS data from previous recessions shows that software eng doesn't get hit nearly as hard as other professions.
  - nkozyra 7y ago
    Right now? No. But this is going to cascade.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  Is it really? I only have two direct data points, but I (government contractor) and my brother (large company) are both still fully employed with no immediate risk of unemployment, reduction in salary, etc. Just look at the numbers. 20% unemployment, while horrific in both human and economic terms, also implies 80% employment. When nearly everyone in the hospitality industry is out of a job, I have to think that some other industry is doing relatively better or the numbers would be even worse.
  - Royalaid 7y ago
    Just go look on Twitter, in the Clojure hashtag at least, something that rarely sees people needing jobs, there have been a hire me thread, a several individual posts for people asking work, and more and more post about people getting laid off. This will just continue to increase as the virus does it's thing.

jiofih 7y ago

Is the title incorrect? Reading the article it says an additional 3M, for a total of six million

makomk 7y ago
If I'm understanding the article correctly, the title is correct - there were 6.6M initial unemployment claims filed in the last week alone, which is about 3M more than were filed in the previous week. This would give a total of about 10M new unemployment claims over the two-week period.

aazaa 7y ago

There's a sense that once "lockdown" ends, thing go back to normal. In other words, the "V" shaped recovery is the dominant mental model. Should that not materialize, the disappointment and anger will reach level not seen in most people's lifetimes. One reason the V-scenario might not play out is that the US still doesn't have a handle on the testing problem. Without testing, you have no way to estimate the danger to the public of normalizing economic activity. At the first sign of a new outbreak, the entire lockdown cycle will repeat. Too few people will have gained immunity, and the disease is far too contagious and deadly to take any chances. We still don't know what "immunity" looks like at any rate. Alternatively, the lies about testing may have burned people so badly by the time the "all clear" is given (whatever that looks like), that few will believe it. The effect would be a national strike/boycott.

rootusrootus 7y ago
> Should that not materialize And soon. A great many people have a low tolerance for indefinite lockdowns. The longer we go without any kind of plan, the more likely it becomes that people will begin disregarding it. I already see that the amount of traffic on the roads is increasing over time. What we need are leaders, and it's glaringly obvious that in most states we don't have that. During peacetime nobody notices, but when the SHTF the leadership vacuum is palpable.

tamaharbor 7y ago

Percent infected = 0.012%; Percent unemployed = 2.1%; I hope it is all worth it.

greedo 7y ago

The long term scars of this upcoming Depression will be unlike anything anyone under 70 has experienced. And the scars will be long lasting. My mother in law used to use Cool Whip containers for leftovers. When we'd visit, she'd send us home with food packed in them. Usually stuff like mashed potatoes, but often good stuff too. And when we'd visit her in a few weeks/month, she'd ask where her containers were. This was a generation that saved EVERYTHING. The idea of throwing something out was disrespectful. Waste was the worst of many mortal sins. All because of the Great Depression.

0xffff2 7y ago
A 70 year old today was born in 1950. What have they experienced that's worse than this? I think this is going to be unlike anything in living memory.
- kazen44 7y ago
  my grandfather was a teen during ww2. This behaviour was common with him aswell. Saving even the bones of chicken/cows to make stock. when a was a smile child and was nagging him for something to eat, he used to tell me i have never experienced hunger, only "trek". (which would be roughly translated to snackish).
  - greedo 7y ago
    My father was a butcher's son during the Depression. Whenever someone in the family would say "I'm starving!" he would get mad and explain that you had no idea what you were talking about.
- greedo 7y ago
  My point is that unless you're really old, this is probably one of the worst things you'll experience. Of course that's a Western-centric view. Off the top of my head I think the Cultural Revolution would be worse, the Partition of India would be up there, and the incessant warring and instability in Africa as decolonization occurred.
7y ago

godelzilla 7y ago

Now let's see how the gamblers and con artists who run health care can handle an uninsured nation in plague... smh.

cycop 7y ago

Private health care will try to collect on all of their costs in regards to this pandemic, if the US government allows that it will kill the economy even further. How long until the US Government nationalizes Health Care?

nyxtom 7y ago

Is there any data on these numbers broken down by industry and profession?

Der_Einzige 7y ago

Yet you wouldn't know it based on the stock market. Where is this collapse you all talk about? Donald Pump and Powell will just use infinite QE and monetary policy to fix all of our problems. After all, the US Dollar is still strong due to a liquidity shortage world-wide from everyone being desperate to convert domestic money to USD Until that liquidity crisis dries up within the world, stonks seem only go up. Money printer goes brrrrr. I've never seen markets behave so effing irrationally before. Investors are pants on head stupid at a level that boggels my mind. "markets can be irrational longer than you can stay solvent" is being proven to be sage advice with this pandemic.