Corona virus cases are on the rise in the United States. At the same time, people's jobs are constantly declining in America. The Department of Labor said in a recent report that the initial unemployment figure in the U.S. reached 1.3 million last week. However, this is the 13th consecutive week that the unemployment figure has declined.
In the week ending July 4, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell from 1,314,000 to 99,000, according to a report released Thursday. The latest number, a staggering 48 million initial unemployment claims have been filed in the last 15 weeks, indicating a growing economic downturn.
More than 1.3 million people in the U.S. last week applied to the government for unemployment relief. This shows that due to the epidemic, many employers are still making layoffs in the wake of the epidemic.
The rapid layoffs come at a time when six major U.S. states, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan and Texas, have reversed plans to open up their economies due to a sharp rise in new cases of corona virus infection. These states contribute a third of the U.S. economy. Fifteen other states have also blocked plans to open markets.
The simultaneous postponement of several states' plans to open up the economy has had a negative impact on the job market. The Labor Department's report on Thursday shows that the number of applications for unemployment relief has come down to around 1.3 million in the last week.
If much more advanced countries are recording deaths in droves from this virus, Nigerians should continue to mount maximum pressures on their leaders and cooperate with them to stem the spread of this novel virus in Nigeria.