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Pandemic Effect: US Companies Cut 20.2 Million Jobs in April

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - The U.S. economy, the world's largest, is plummeting fast
   in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, with a new report showing
   American companies cut 20.2 million jobs from their payrolls in April.

   The ADP Research Institute said Wednesday the April job losses were the
   worst in the 18 years it has tracked the economy and were double the
   previous monthly low point set in February 2009, during the Great
   Recession.

   ADP said small, mid-sized and large companies all slashed millions of
   jobs.

   Moreover, the overall losses for the month were likely much higher
   since ADP's monthly tabulation ended on April 12, in keeping with the
   reporting schedule maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

   Already, 30.3 million workers have filed for unemployment compensation
   since the pandemic enveloped the U.S, forcing a vast shutdown of the
   country's commerce that only now is beginning to reopen.

   Millions more laid-off workers have filed for the jobless pay in each
   of the last six weeks, an amount that varies in each of the 50 states,
   but typically totals less than half of what workers are normally paid.

   To augment those stipends, the U.S. government is paying unemployed
   workers $600 a week more over the next four months.

   The U.S. has recorded more than 71,000 deaths, easily the biggest total
   in any country across the globe, and counted 1.2 million confirmed
   cases, a third of the world total.

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