US jobless claims pass 36 million after nearly 3 million more file for aid last week

America's historic era of job expansion following the Great Recession is officially wiped out amid the coronavirus pandemic

Nearly three million workers in the United States filed for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to cause one of the worst stretches of job loss in American history.

More than 36 million people have sought unemployment aid since the outbreak began in the US. The unemployment rate has meanwhile soared above 14.7 percent, the worst rate since the Great Depression.

In an interview with Fox Business on Thursday morning, Donald Trump acknowledged the unemployment rate would still be above at least 10 percent by November, predicting the economy would make a rebound closer to 2021.

“I think what’s going to happen is next year is going to be one of our best years,” the president said just before the latest unemployment figures dropped. “I feel that we will transition in this third quarter, fourth quarter is going to be good, next year is going to be incredible.”

The latest jobless claims follow a devastating jobs report last week. The government said employers shed a stunning 20.5 million jobs. A decade's worth of job growth was wiped out in a single month.

Even those figures failed to capture the full scale of the damage. The government said many workers in April were counted as employed but absent from work and should have been counted as temporarily unemployed.

Millions of other laid-off workers didn't look for a new job in April, likely discouraged by their prospects in a mostly shuttered economy, and weren't included, either. If all those people had been counted as unemployed, the jobless rate would have reached nearly 24 percent.

Most economists have forecast that the official unemployment rate could hit 18 percent or higher in May before potentially declining by summer.

The job market's collapse has occurred with dizzying speed. As recently as February, the unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, a half-century low. Even in March, unemployment was just 4.4 percent.

Now, with few Americans shopping, travelling, eating out or otherwise spending normally, economists are projecting that the gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of economic activity — is shrinking in the April-June quarter at a roughly 40 percent annual rate. That would be the deepest quarterly contraction on record.

Few analysts expect a quick rebound. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned Wednesday that the virus-induced recession could turn into a prolonged downturn that would erode workers' skills and employment connections while bankrupting many small businesses.

Mr Powell urged Congress and the White House to consider additional spending and tax measures to help small businesses and households avoid bankruptcy.

He spoke a day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, proposed a $3trn aid package that would direct money to state and local governments, households and health-care workers. White House officials have countered that they want to first see how previous federal aid packages affect the economy. And Republican leaders in Congress have expressed scepticism about approving significant more spending right now.

Donald Trump is meanwhile applauding the moves to reopen states' economies in hopes of reducing unemployment. So far, there is limited evidence on how that is working.

The Associated Press contributed to this report