THE NEW YORK TIMES, SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2020 N B3WORKPLACEThe jobless rate today is al-
most certainly higher than at any
point since the Great Depression.
We think it’s around 13 percent
and rising at a speed unmatched
in American history.
The labor market is changing
so fast that our official statistics
— intended to measure changes
over months and years rather
than days or weeks — can’t
really keep up. But a few simple
calculations can help piece to-
gether a reasonable approxima-
tion.
Be warned, these numbers
yield an imprecise estimate of
today’s unemployment rate, and
the truth could easily be quite a
lot higher or lower. This is not an
estimate of the official unemploy-
ment rate for March, which
reports the state of the economy
a few weeks ago when the labor
market was in better shape, nor
is it a forecast for the official rate
in April.
The Labor Department re-
ported on Thursday that around
nine million people had filed for
unemployment insurance over
the past two weeks. (That num-
ber is not seasonally adjusted.)
By contrast, in a healthy econ-
omy, fewer than half a million
people would have done so. This
suggests there are around 8.5
million more people on unem-
ployment benefits today than
there were two weeks ago.
There are important differ-
ences between who receives
unemployment benefits and
whom the official statistics meas-
ure as unemployed. (The former
is based on eligibility for unem-
ployment insurance, while the
latter is based on who responds
to government surveys that they
are actively looking for work.)
But it is likely that nearly all of
these people will show up in the
official statistics. After all, you
qualify for unemployment bene-
fits only if you’re actively looking
for work.
In addition, independent con-
tractors, including many gig
economy workers, most likely
lost their jobs but did not qualify
for benefits. (The recent fiscal
package passed by Congress will
change this in coming weeks.) It
is hard to be precise about howmany people fall into this catego-
ry, but a round, conservative
guess might raise my estimate of
the number of job losers to 10
million from 8.5 million.
State unemployment offices
have also been overwhelmed,
and it’s likely that some people
have tried to claim benefits but
are not yet counted officially
because of processing delays.
This might add a further million
to our estimate, bringing it to 11
million.
The unemployment rate is
calculated as the ratio of those
who are unemployed to those in
the labor force. The labor force is
around 165 million, so if 11 million
extra people have lost their jobs,the unemployment rate will rise
from around 3.5 percent in Feb-
ruary to around 10 percent.
But that’s not the whole story.
The latest initial claims data
report the total number of claims
only through March 28. Since
then, it’s likely that an additional
four million people have lost
their jobs. We’re now up to an
extra 15 million people unem-
ployed, which would bump the
unemployment rate for today up
to around 12.5 percent.
So far, these calculations re-
flect only the rise in unemploy-
ment caused by job loss, but it’s
likely that there has been a steep
drop in hiring as well.
In the 2008 recession, the rate
of separations — that’s the tech-
nical term for when workers and
their jobs part ways, both volun-
tarily and involuntarily — actu-
ally fell. In that recession, the
decrease in employment entirely
reflected a very sharp decline in
hiring.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics
reports that in a typical month,
nearly six million workers are
hired, a rate of 1.5 million per
week. Again, it’s hard to know
how much that has fallen, but if
the hiring rate fell by a fifth over
the past three weeks, that would
mean that roughly one million
fewer people found work than
might otherwise be expected to.
At this point, our calculations
show 16 million more people
without work, for an unemploy-
ment rate of 13 percent.
These are obviously rough
estimates. One important limita-tion is that these calculations do
not account for the possibility
that some number of people who
lose their jobs will leave the
labor force rather than continue
to search for work. To the extent
that happens, these numbers
overstate the rise in unemploy-
ment.
Given the many uncertainties
involved, perhaps it’s better to
say that unemployment has risen
by 10 million to 20 million, which
means that the unemploymentrate is probably between 10
percent and 15 percent.
That might sound like an un-
satisfyingly unclear conclusion,
but it’s a product of how poorly
our official statistics track labor
market changes from day to day,
and how rapidly the economy is
shutting down.
Even with these caveats, it’s
already clear that the rise in
unemployment over the past few
weeks has exceeded the rise
during the entire year and a half
of the last recession.
Looking ahead, if job losses
continue at the same rate as in
recent weeks, the unemployment
rate will rise by nearly half a
percentage point per day. To give
some context, over our recent
decade-long recovery, the unem-
ployment rate has fallen roughly
that much per year.Unemployment Is Rising Faster Than Ever, Outpacing Official Statistics
20%1510513%?1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020Unemployment rateSources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Historical Statistics
of the United States (annual estimates before 1948) THE NEW YORK TIMESThe jobless rate today is almost certainly at
its highest level since the Great Depression.By JUSTIN WOLFERSThe Upshot provides news, analysis
and graphics about politics, policy
and everyday life.
nytimes.com/upshotleisure and hospitality sector.
The tally marks a stunningly
abrupt end to a landmark stretch
of job creation — 113 months in a
row, more than twice the previous
record. The gains began in late
2010 and totaled 22.2 million in an
expansion that was steady, if not
always spectacular.
The near decade of resurgent
hiring more than recouped the 8.7
million jobs wiped out in the reces-
sion that came just before.
For corporations, the last 10
years were a golden age. With in-
terest rates low, many companies
binged on debt even as they used
excess cash to buy back stock. For
workers, the results were mixed,
with modest increases in wages,
especially for those in lower-paid
jobs.
In the last few years, monthly
hiring picked up, pushing the un-
employment rate to a half-century
low, including a 3.5 percent read-
ing in February.
The coronavirus pandemic
changed all of that.
The closing of everything from
restaurants and barbershops to
retail stores and movie theaters
eliminated broad swaths of em-
ployment in one blow, a loss only
partly mitigated by vast govern-
ment aid programs hurriedly en-
acted last month.
Hiring virtually stopped in
March, and nonessential busi-
nesses laid off staff as stay-at-
home orders spread throughout
the country. If anything, the pic-
ture has grown bleaker since the
Labor Department collected the
March data.
“April will be markedly worse,”
said Ellen Zentner, chief U.S. econ-
omist at Morgan Stanley. “Job
losses will be in the millions and
will make March’s losses look
tiny.”
She expects the unemployment
rate to peak at 16.4 percent in May,
the highest level since the Labor
Department began keeping track
after the Great Depression. The
record is 10.8 percent in Novem-
ber and December 1982.
Ms. Zentner expects the unem-
ployment rate to begin coming
down in June but said the recov-
ery would be slow. “The unem-
ployment rate went up by elevator
and will come down by escalator,”
she said.
During the long expansion, cor-
porations were confident enough
to run their operations with low in-
ventories, lots of debt, little cash
and supply lines that stretched
across the globe. Without that
cash cushion and that confidence,
returning to robust employment
levels will not be easy, said Steph-
anie Pomboy, president of the in-
dependent research firm Mac-
roMavens.
“Companies saved nothing for a
rainy day,” she said. “They will
have a much more conservative
approach to running their busi-
nesses in the future.”
With most workplaces shut
down, laid-off workers confront a
bleak landscape, with little
prospect of being hired until the
pandemic lifts.
One exception is in shipping
and delivery, where companies
are staffing up to get goods to mil-
lions of customers who cannot
leave home. Amazon is in the
midst of hiring 100,000 warehouse
and delivery workers, and said on
Thursday that it had already add-
ed 80,000. Walmart and Lowe’s
are filling tens of thousands of
new positions.
But those are rare opportunities
in an economy largely frozen.
“We’re in a delicate period in
which a mild recession could turn
into something more damaging,”
said Carl Tannenbaum, chief
economist for Northern Trust.“Government policy must contin-
ue to be aggressive if we hope to
put a floor under the current eco-
nomic retreat.”
The March report “represents
the interruption of a very long
winning streak, and sadder still,
this is only the tip of the iceberg,”
he said. “It’s clear from the data
that those with more modest lev-els of education remain the most
vulnerable members of our labor
force. They are often the first to be
laid off and often take a long time
to get back to work.”
The seasonally adjusted unem-
ployment rate for workers with-
out a high school diploma rose to
6.8 percent in March from 5.7 per-
cent in February, according to the
Labor Department. Among those
with at least a bachelor’s degree,
joblessness rose to 2.5 percent
from 1.9 percent.
Mr. Tannenbaum noted that
restaurants and other food-serv-
ice establishments, which rely
more heavily on less educated
workers, were among the busi-
nesses hit hardest as the shut-
down progressed. Many of those
workers cannot afford an inter-
ruption in their paychecks.
Even previous shocks to the
economic system, like the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks in 2001 or Hurri-
cane Katrina in 2005, did not com-
bine the magnitude of the job
losses now underway with the
pace of unfolding events.
“The speed of the job losses is
unlike anything we’ve ever seen,”
said Gabriel Mathy, an assistant
professor at American University
whose specialty is economic his-
tory. “We’re in uncharted waters.”
The feverish crush to file unem-
ployment claims crashed govern-
ment websites and caused those
calling unemployment offices to
be on hold for hours or get persist-
ent busy signals.
For workers like Jane Bunting,March was a transitional month
between employment and unem-
ployment. A member of the na-
tional touring company of “Come
From Away,” a Broadway musical,
she watched as one venue after
another canceled show dates as
March wore on.
She received her last payment
on Thursday and has been trying
to file for unemployment benefits
this week, only for the website to
crash on every attempt. Ms. Bun-
ting gave up her apartment in
New York City when the show’s
tour began a year and a half ago
and is holed up in a rental place in
upstate New York.
“I’ve been saving really ag-
gressively, so I feel comfortable,”
she said. “I haven’t had to dip into
savings yet. But the longer this
goes on, I definitely will.”
The show’s run has been can-
celed through early May, but Ms.
Bunting is hoping the curtain
rises soon after.
“Of course I want to go back to
work as soon as possible, but if
people need to stay out longer to
flatten the curve, then I com-
pletely understand,” she said.
Megan-Claire Chase, who
learned last week that Friday
would be her final day as a mar-
keting project manager at Em-
ployBridge, a national staffing
agency based in Atlanta, knows
the anxiety of losing a job.
“I was laid off in the recession in
2008,” she said, “so this is a night-
mare.”
For Ms. Chase, 43, the loss ismore unnerving now.
“I’m a cancer survivor, so all of a
sudden to be without my benefits
is very scary,” she said. Ms. Chase
is supposed to undergo checks ev-
ery six months to make sure she is
still in remission. As soon as she
heard the layoff news, she called
to reschedule one scan for this
week but was not able to get an ap-
pointment.
“It’s very scary as a single per-
son,” Ms. Chase said. One of 300
people at her firm who were laid
off, she has to wait until after her
last day of work to file for unem-
ployment benefits.
“I realized I’m actually grieving
— the loss of my jobs, the loss of
my benefits — and it’s not any-
thing that I did,” she said.
As bad as the layoffs have been,
some executives are trying their
best to avoid staff reductions. Tom
Gimbel, chief executive of LaSalle
Network, a Chicago staffing firm,
is forgoing his salary through the
second quarter of the year and po-
tentially longer, he said. Business
is down 25 percent, and he antici-
pates that it could ultimately be off
35 percent.
He has been holding all-hands
meetings with his employees at 10
a.m. daily with the online confer-
encing app Zoom. The market for
permanent positions is very
weak, he said, but the temporary-
staffing business is holding up a
bit better.
“There are no profits right now,”
Mr. Gimbel said. “But we’ve
avoided layoffs so far.”Run of Job Growth Ends. Don’t Expect a Fast Return.
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
BRITTANY GREESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESLYNSEY WEATHERSPOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESThe pandemic has led to U.S. business coming to a standstill in usually busy areas like Gratiot Avenue in Detroit.
Megan-Claire Chase, 43, lost her job at a staffing agency. She was also laid off during the 2008 recession.SUMMONS – MONROE – INDEX NO.: E2020001327
Plaintiff designates MONROE COUNTY as the place of trial under CPLR section 507, because the judgment
demanded would affect the title to, or the possession, use or enjoyment of, real property situated within such
county having tax map Section 078.18, Block 2, Lot 3, Rochester, NY, County of Monroe
BAY ROAD GROCERY LLC, Plaintiff
against
J. FRANCIS CORRIGAN and LEE G. CORRIGAN and all other persons unknown, claiming any right, title, estate,
lien, or interest in the real property described in the complaint adverse to Plaintiff’s ownership, or any cloud on
Plaintiff’s title, Defendants.
To the above-named Defendants:
YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED to answer the Complaint in this action and to serve a copy of your Answer, or,
if the Verified Complaint is not served with this Summons, to serve a Notice of Appearance, on the Plaintiff’s
attorney within 30 days after the service of this Summons, exclusive of the day of service; and in case of your
failure to appear or Answer, Judgment will be taken against you by default for the relief demanded in the Verified
Complaint.
Dated: February 3, 2020, Rochester, New York
SANTIAGO BURGER LLP, Michael A. Burger, Attorneys for Plaintiff, 2280 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14610,
Tel.: (585) 563-2400, [email protected]
To the above named defendants: The foregoing summons is served upon you by publication pursuant to an Order
of the Honorable James J. Piampiano, a Justice of the Supreme Court, State of New York, dated March 13, 2020
and filed with the Monroe County Clerk together with the supporting papers thereon. This is an action is an action
to quiet title in the premises known as 078.18, Block 2, Lot 3, Rochester, NY, County of Monroe as described in
the complaint on file and commonly known as 426 Ridge Road, Webster, New York 14580.