Below is a chart and brief excerpt from today's Early Look written by Financials analyst Josh Steiner.
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In the early days and months of Covid the enhanced unemployment program, combined with a myriad of loan forbearance programs, was a Godsend for many hardworking American workers and their families who found themselves out of a job – for a long time – practically overnight. But today, roughly 15 months after Covid began, there are still 16 million workers collecting unemployment insurance. For reference, at the peak of the Great Financial Crisis, in May of 2009, there were 6.5 million workers collecting unemployment insurance. So, we are still at 2.5x the peak of the GFC in terms of the number of insured unemployed. Meanwhile, in May of 2009, according to JOLTS data (Job Openings, Total Nonfarm) there were just 2.5 million job openings. Today, there are 8.1 million openings. To be clear, job openings fell precipitously from 7.1 million in January of last year to a low of 4.6 million in April of 2020, but they have risen almost every month since then and now stand fully one million jobs higher than in January 2020. Yet the number of initial jobless claimants remains at 16 million or roughly 10x the 1.7 million in January 2020. Said differently, the number of insured unemployed today sits at a multiple of ~10x pre-pandemic levels while the number of job openings is higher by 1 million jobs from pre-pandemic levels. |
