1.4 million health-care workers lost their jobs due to the pandemic last month

Friday's job report is difficult enough to wrap your head around, with a record 20.5 million jobs lost in April. But perhaps once of the most surprising details is that health care was one of the hardest-hit industries due to the pandemic.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that some 1.4 million health-care jobs were eliminated in April, lead by losses of dentists, physicians, and "offices of other health care practitioners." Nearly 135,000 of the health care jobs lost in April were in hospitals, NPR reports.

The health care unemployment numbers reflect an increase from March, the first full month of the pandemic in the U.S., when just 42,000 healthcare jobs were lost. Additionally, health care spending in the United States dipped 18 percent in the first three months of the year as people have avoided emergency rooms, doctor offices, and elective surgeries and procedures.

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"I was thinking maybe I would have to worry about when I was going to get a day off," Fae-Marie Donathan, a surgical ICU nurse at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center who filed for unemployment last month, told NPR. "I was thinking totally the opposite, never ever suspecting that I would be sitting at home not getting any hours at work."

Leisure and hospitality were the hardest-hit industries, with 7.7 million jobs lost in April. Retail was also hard hit, with a loss of 2.1 million jobs, and manufacturing, with 1.3 million.