The US unemployment claims have been surging since the middle of March, when they jumped from 280K to above 3 million. Claims continued climbing since then and reached to 6.6 million in  the first week of April. They have been softening since then, but have remained above 3 million every week, bringing the numbers of unemployed people to above 33 million statistically.

But, as I mentioned in a previous article today, the number of unemployed people might be even higher, since not everyone is filing for jobless claims, with people being in house arrest and everything, unable to drive or walk for miles until the unemployment offices. Today’s report was expected to show claims soften to 3 million, but they came at 3,169 million.

US Initial Jobless Claims and Continuing Claims

• Initial jobless claims 3,169K vs 3,000K estimate
• Initial jobless claims 3,169K versus 3,000K estimate. Prior week revised to 3,846K vs 3,839K previously reported
• Initial jobless claims 4 week moving average 4,173.5K versus 5,035K last week
• Continuing claims 22,647K versus 19,800K estimate. The prior week was revised to 1,8011K versus 17,992K initially reported
• Continuing claims 4 week moving average 17,097.75K vs 13,297.5K last week
• The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending April 18 were in Vermont (25.2), West Virginia (21.9), Michigan (21.7), Rhode Island (20.4), Nevada (19.9), Connecticut (18.7), Puerto Rico (17.9), Georgia (17.3), New York (17.2), and Washington (17.1).
• The total number of jobless claims since mid March has risen by 33.5 million