Jobless claims surge from 282,000 to record high of 3.3 million

Amid the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis, unemployment claims have surged to a record high.

The Department of Labor on Thursday reported that a staggering 3.28 million people filed initial jobless claims last week, when businesses around the country were forced to lay off workers as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, CNN reports. That's more than four times higher than the previous record high of 695,000 in October 1982, per The Associated Press. The Department of Labor first began to track the data in 1967.

This is also a huge spike from the week prior, when 282,000 initial jobless claims were filed. Already, the spike in unemployment claims from last week's Labor Department report, which was for the week ending on March 14, had represented a bigger one-week jump than during the Great Recession.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In fact, CNBC reports this number "shatters the Great Recession peak of 665,000 in March 2009."