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Wisconsin’s jobless rate has skyrocketed to nearly 27% due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s shuttering of thousands of businesses to combat the disease, according to a new estimate from the state Department of Workforce Development.

The projection, which is not the same as the official state unemployment rate, mirrors the explosive growth in unemployment claims — which have surpassed 300,000 initial claims since mid-March — as businesses shut down across the state to limit exposure to the respiratory disease that has killed 111 and sickened more than 2,800 people in Wisconsin.

Dennis Winters, chief economist with DWD, said the analysis projects that close to 725,000 Wisconsin residents — across 48,000 private establishments — are out of work due to the pandemic. Some 109,000 people already were unemployed before the outbreak.

Just a year ago, in April 2019, the state had recorded its lowest unemployment rate ever at 2.8%. The unemployment rate in February was 3.5%.

A 27% jobless rate could be historic, Winters said, noting that the state’s unemployment rate peaked at a little over 10% in early 2010, at the height of the Great Recession.