Coronavirus job losses are hitting these states the hardest

The number of jobs lost due to the coronavirus shutdown continue to mount, with the latest weekly total of Americans applying for unemployment benefits coming in at nearly 3 million, yet again. Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman and Heidi Chung break down the details.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: But again, the main story today, quite the turnaround, quite the comeback to-- to trade back into positive territory. Of course, we started the day off in the red because of the update we got on the unemployment front. Again, a negative report that exceeded expectations to the downside.

I want to jump into those numbers that we got from the Department of Labor. Another 2.9 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the week ended May 9. That surpassed the estimate that economists had at about 2.5 million. That's the second time in a row that we've seen the actual headline number come in worse than what was expected.

And for more on this, as we always do, I want to get to Yahoo Finance's Heidi Chung to dig into the report just a little bit more. Heidi.

HEIDI CHUNG: Hey, Zack. Yeah, I just want to reiterate what you just mentioned. Another 2.9 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the week ended May 9. Estimates there were for 2.5 million initial jobless claims. And the prior week's figure was raised higher, to 3.18 million from the previously reported 3.17 million claims.

Now, after hitting a record in the week ending March 28, the number of jobless claims, though, has steadily declined. But again, that cumulative number is still rather high here. So far over the past two months, so eight weeks, roughly 36 and 1/2 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance. Continuing claims, which lags initial jobless claims data by one week, totaled a record 22.83 [AUDIO OUT] in the week ending May 2, following 22.3 million continuing claims in the prior week.

Now, looking here at some of the states that reported the highest number of jobless claims last week, Zack, I do want to mention here that there is a bit of confusion in the Department of Labor's report that was released this morning. In it, it said that Connecticut reported 299,000 initial jobless claims on an unadjusted basis. Now, that would be a huge increase from the 36,000 that the state had reported in the week prior, so a lot of folks questioning whether or not there was a typo in the Labor Department's report there.

Now, excluding Connecticut, though, Georgia saw an estimated 241,000 on an adjusted basis. That is up from 228,000 in the prior week. Then we have Florida at an estimated 221,000 claims. California reporting 240,000 claims.

And New York with roughly 200,000 jobless claims. Now, on that list of states that I just mentioned, California was actually the only state to report a decline in jobless claims week over week. So it could be evidence here that we are finally starting to see those really hefty backlogs start to get processed across-- all over the country. Zack.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and Heidi, as we look back-- as we like to do here-- look back at the last seven weeks since we saw this coronavirus lockdown kind of take effect, even though states are reopening, as you're highlighting, there are still a lot of unemployment claims being processed out there. And when you look at that span and average it out compared to before this crisis hit, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Virginia, the South is just jumping out as one of the hardest-hit areas in the country when you look at the spike to unemployment claims there.

Just incredible numbers when you think about a 4,600%-- 4,600% spike in unemployment claims there in the state of Georgia. And just striking to see that kind of concentrated in that region. Of course, we also got the update too from the Department of Labor in terms of unemployed-- insured unemployment rates, which kind of align with the number that we got in terms of that big jobs report last week.

When you look at those numbers, equally impressive to see, California's insured unemployment right now topping 27%, which would indicate that more than one in four Californians who were employed are looking for a job, currently on unemployment, which is a striking number. You got Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island topping out the top five there, Heidi. I mean, those are some pretty serious unemployment rates and largely the expection-- the expection-- it's expected to get worse as we move forward when you look at Goldman Sachs' calls for the actual unemployment rate on a national level moving forward too.

HEIDI CHUNG: Hey, Zack. Yeah, sorry. I didn't realize that was a question to me. But yeah, I mean, a lot of folks out there, though, I think [AUDIO OUT] Zack, is that we will continue to see a steady decline. And although things are probably not going to look good for a while here, just hope for the best, and we'll start to see some sort of improvement in the weekly claims number, and thus the monthly number as well.

ZACK GUZMAN: All right, Heidi Chung bringing us the latest on the unemployment front there as, again, nearly 3 million Americans applying for benefits this past week.