The coronavirus crisis has led to unemployment for millions of Americans as business shutter to prevent the spread of the virus. (Picture:AP)

The coronavirus outbreak has left more than 22 million Americans out of work across the country as the jobless total rose by another 5.25 million over the last week.

Unemployment has been on the rise in the United States for weeks as businesses shutter to prevent the spread of Covid-19. More than 6 million Americans filed jobless claims in each of the previous two weeks, according to the Labor Department. The new increase in jobless claims has seen the US unemployment rate rise to a historic 16 percent.

The 22 million jobless claims that have been filed since March 14 compares with the 21.5 million new jobs that were created since the economic expansion that began in 2009. Before the pandemic, the largest number of people to ask for unemployment benefits was in 1992, when 2.7 million Americans sought support.



The latest figures have further fueled fears that world is headed for a financial crisis as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment claims made since coronavirus halted most of the US economy far-eclipse the previous record for most unemployment claims filed in a week, when 695,000 people sought financial assistance in 1982.


The week before the virus put a stranglehold on the US economy, there were reportedly about 228,000 jobless claims filed, but that number has continued to jump for weeks as tens of thousands of businesses were forced to close down and temporarily furlough or permanently lay-off workers.

In response to an economy crippled by coronavirus, Donald Trump said he plans to issue guidelines to governors Thursday about how to reopen parts of the country. The president made the announcement on Wednesday after he met with business leaders to discuss the financial turmoil caused by the coronavirus.

Americans are seen lined up to file for unemployment at e an Arkansas Workforce Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas (Picture: Reuters)

This week, an estimated 60 million Americans received stimulus checks starting at $1,200 to help cope with the crisis.

Thursday’s report of the jump in jobless claims comes one day after data showed a record drop in retail sales in March – as well as the biggest decrease in factory manufacturing since 1946.

‘The decline in economic activity is breathtaking,’ Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economics in Holland, Pennsylvania told Reuters.

‘While we will see an initial upturn once the economy reopens, the strength and length of that recovery is not clear at all.’