• Jobless claims total 5.245 million as 22 million positions have been lost in a month due to coronavirus
• Weekly jobless claims totaled 5.245 million, the Labor Department reported.
• That was a drop of 1.37 million from a week ago but was above estimates for 5 million.

Protection measures against the coronavirus continued to tear through the employment ranks, with 5.245 million more Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The new filings bring the crisis total to just over 22 million, nearly wiping out all the job gains since the Great Recession.

The total was a bit worse than the 5 million expected from economists surveyed by Dow Jones.

Though the most recent count, for the week ended April 11, represented a drop from the previous two weeks, it still showed that the damage to the U.S. labor market remains profound.

“As we fully know the current state of the labor market with mass waves of layoffs, the key question turns to how many of these people will be rehired when the economy starts to reopen,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at the Bleakley Group. “We can assume it will take a long time for that to happen but hopefully we’re getting closer to at least getting started.”

Most of the big states showed declines from the previous week in benefit applications, according to unadjusted numbers.

Pennsylvania posted a drop of 39,283, California was down by 257,848 and Michigan fell by 169,234. New York, which has lagged some of the larger states in terms of filings, saw a gain of 51,498 to 395,949.

Source: CNBC. Click here to read full article.