Reopen US economy to reduce unemployment levels

AS THE April US employment numbers came in, I could not help shaking my head in disbelief at what the country's labour market is going through.

The April jobs report has brought home the catastrophic impact that the lockdown has inflicted on US workers. Non-farm payrolls suffered the largest decline on record, falling by 20.5 million and bringing employment back to early-2011 levels. The unemployment rate jumped by more than 10 percentage points to 14.7 per cent, corresponding to 16 million more unemployed people. The broader "U6" measure - which includes workers marginally attached to the labour force or working part-time for economic reasons (unable to find full-time work) - jumped to nearly 23 per cent.

In the 2009 Great Recession, those two rates had peaked at 10 per cent and about 17 per cent respectively. Most of the decline was in the services sector, especially leisure and hospitality (-7.7 million), but manufacturing and construction also suffered a heavy blow.