U.S. loses 20.2 million private sector jobs in April, ADP says

A staggering 20.2 million private sector jobs were lost from March to April, the ADP National Employment Report said Wednesday.

This private payrolls loss during the coronavirus pandemic was the worst ADP has recorded in a month since it began tracking in 2002, far surpassing the previous worst report of 834,665 in February 2009, CNBC reports. The report, however, notes that since it's based on data through the 12th of April, it "does not reflect the full impact of COVID-19 on the overall employment situation." The number of Americans who filed initial unemployment claims recently passed 30 million in six weeks.

"Job losses of this scale are unprecedented," ADP Research Institute co-head Ahu Yildirmaz said, per CNBC. "The total number of job losses for the month of April alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession."

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This comes ahead of the report to be released Friday from the Labor Department that economists forecast will show an unemployment rate of 16 percent as about 21.5 million jobs were lost, USA Today reports. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, however, said this week the unemployment rate could end up being as high as 20 percent.

"We are looking at probably the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression," he said.