US unemployment surges to 14.7% as record 20m Americans lose jobs in April
Unemployment rate rose from just 4.4% in March as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the global economy
More than 20 million people in the US lost their jobs in April and the unemployment rate more than trebled as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the global economy, triggering a financial crisis unseen since the Great Depression.
The Department of Labor announced Friday that the US unemployment rate rose to 14.7% from just 4.4% in March and a near 50-year low of 3.5% in February before the US was hit by the virus.