US jobless claims hit record 6.6 million as Covid-19 ravages economy - business live
(The Guardian Business News)

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including a truly awful US jobless reportNewsflash: US initial jobless claims hit record6.6 million people signed on last weekExperts: It´s a dreadful reportEarlier:One in four UK firms cut staff levelsCough medicine prices up 10% last weekCoronavirus - latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage 2.37pm BST Today´s US jobless claims report was worst than the more dire forecasts. That´s a bad sign.Usually, economists make a range of informed estimates, which gives us a median prediction. Now, sometimes that average doesn´t prove too accurate. But it´s unusual for even the gloomiest forecast to undershoot reality.`Today´s jobless claims report is troubling not just because it was record-breaking but also because it easily exceeded pessimistic consensus estimates.This is disconcerting because it indicates that after a month in crisis, U.S. businesses and investors are still struggling to discern the basic contours of the economic fallout of coronavirus pandemic. 2.23pm BST Economic data come in many forms. Good, mediocre, bad, and then occasionally so awful that you can´t quite believe it´s true. Today´s initial jobless claims fall squarely into the last category. `Today´s US jobless claims figure has a strong claim to being quite literally the worst single economic data release of all time, in terms of its significance for both the US economy and global markets.` Continue reading...