The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for benefits, a good proxy for layoffs, rose by 70,000 to a seasonally adjusted 281,000 last week.
Both the one-week rise and the total number of applications were far above the levels seen over the past year as the country’s unemployment rate fell to a half-century low of 3.5%.
Economists are predicting a surge in layoffs as efforts to contain the spreading coronavirus result in people losing jobs in a variety of industries from restaurants and bars to airlines and hotels.
There have been a number of states such as Ohio reporting huge jumps in unemployment applications already. The Trump administration and Congress are scrambling to produce a support package of around $1 trillion which would provide checks to Americans who have been affected by the virus and support for small businesses and big companies such as the airlines.
A proposal from Treasury has suggested spending $500 billion to provide checks for Americans who have suffered economic harm because of the virus.
