Nearly 1 million California residents were among the 6.6 million Americans who filed for unemployment in the last week as the staggering economic toll from the coronavirus pandemic continued to sweep across the country.

“I have no job, no interviews, nothing so far,” said Red Damir, a Redwood City resident who was laid off recently from his job as a server when Ann’s Coffee Shop, a family-owned diner in Menlo Park, closed its doors after the coronavirus-linked shelter-in-place order. “The shutdown may be necessary, but it’s hurting me.”

In the last three weeks in California, 2.17 million residents have filed for benefits, suggesting that one out of every nine workers in the state has recently lost their job.

The U.S. unemployment numbers marked the second straight week that the nation’s jobless claims were well above 6 million, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday. All told, in the past three weeks, an unprecedented 16.8 million Americans have filed for unemployment aid, which is more than one in 10 workers. During the Great Recession, it took 44 weeks — roughly 10 months — for national unemployment claims to reach as high a total as they now have in less than a month.

The report is a forbidding new reminder of how the coronavirus has infected broad swaths of the economy in the Bay Area, California and nationwide. Companies large and small have closed their doors and idled workers as shelter-in-place orders keep businesses closed and people at home.

“I normally would have been working 35 hours a week, but now I am working 12 hours a week, maybe less,” said Querta Miller, of San Jose, who owns a housecleaning business. With social distancing rules in place, many customers are reluctant to have people come into the house for cleaning jobs, she said.

Last week’s California unemployment claims were on top of the 1.06 million claims filed the week of March 28, and 186,000 filed the week of March 21. And there is little to suggest the pain will ease soon. Bay Area event-organizing company Eventbrite announced this week it would cut its workforce nearly in half “to better position the company to weather the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic” On Thursday, Bay Area online-reviews titan Yelp told employees it was laying off 1,000 workers and furloughing 1,100 as it imposes “severe cost reductions” to “survive amid the coronavirus pandemic.”

“The physical distancing measures and shelter-in-place orders, while critical to flatten the curve, have dealt a devastating blow to the local businesses that are core to our mission,” Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said in a letter to employees.

For the first time in its 101-year history, the famed Pebble Beach Resort closed down, with workers in the restaurant, resort area, retail and caddy operations losing their jobs.

“I looked around for three weeks without work,” said Spencer Carr, a Pebble Beach resident who was a caddy for five years at the golf course.

He eventually found work with Instacart, a high-tech retail delivery service whose business has bloomed amid the coronavirus economic devastation. With a wife, two children and a third child on the way, Carr said he had to find a steady job — any job.

“You can make $200 to $300 a day,” Carr said. “I pick up and deliver groceries for people who are too scared or are unable to leave their house right now because of the coronavirus. The demand, at least in my area, is through the roof.”

Michelle Gabriel, a Pleasanton resident, has operated a dog-walking business for 20 years. Before the rise of COVID-19, Gabriel was booked through the end of summer with dog-walking assignments because of clients’ summer vacation plans.

“When coronavirus hit, everything was shut down completely, people canceled their vacation plans,” Gabriel said. “Now I have absolutely nothing. A lot of people are afraid to travel. Job hunting is not going so well. It’s kind of scary.”

Gabriel’s husband works with the Alameda County Assessor’s Office, so that has helped offset the blow. “We’re getting by,” Gabriel said. “But things are going to have to pick up soon.”

MIller, the San Jose housecleaning company owner, said she has some money in savings. But she knows that will dwindle and eventually be depleted.

“It’s not a lot of money,” Miller said. “I might have enough for two more months.”

The ongoing surge in unemployment claims suggests California will experience double-digit jobless rates this spring that likely will be the highest on record.

By May, unemployment could soar to 18.8 percent in California, 17 percent in the Bay Area and 15.3 percent in Santa Clara County, according to an assessment released this week by the Stockton-based Center for Business and Policy Research. Just four months ago, California and the Bay Area enjoyed record low unemployment rates and were continuing to add thousands of jobs every month.

One of the key strategies in the war against the coronavirus is the ongoing sheltering in place and social distancing orders, said Patrick Kallerman, research director with the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

“Hopefully we can flatten or smash the curve of the virus, and then we can restart the economy,” Kallerman said. “This is painful for a large number of Californians and Americans, but hopefully we can get this over with.”

The Associated Press and staff writer Ethan Baron contributed to this report.