Economists forecast a nearly 20% unemployment rate and 8 million payrolls cut in the May jobs report. Here's what to watch.
- The May nonfarm payrolls report will be released Friday from the Labor Department. It's expected to be another dismal report following record jobs lost and a huge surge in unemployment in April.
- Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the US economy lost 8 million jobs in May and that the unemployment rate spiked to 19.5%, the highest on record dating back to the 1930s.
- Here's what economists will be looking for in the report.
Economists expect that the unemployment rate surged even higher in May as the coronavirus crisis kept businesses shuttered and consumers at home.
The median estimate is that Friday's May nonfarm payrolls report will show that the US economy lost 8 million jobs in the month, according to Bloomberg data.
Economists also expect that the unemployment rate will spike again to 19.5%, the highest seen since the 1930s and rivaling the all-time high estimate of roughly 25% during the Great Depression.
If the estimates are in line with the Labor Department's report, it will show further devastation to the US economy from the sweeping lockdowns that began in mid-March to control coronavirus.
How deep of a hole is the US economy in?
"This report is still more about the damage done because of the timing," Michelle Meyer, chief US economist at Bank of America, told Business Insider, adding that it will be important because it will give a better picture of just how deep the downturn has gone.
The report is backward-looking, reflecting data from the first weeks of May. Since, all 50 states have relaxed at least some of their coronavirus lockdown restrictions, meaning some businesses have reopened and workers have returned to their jobs.
And, while the number of jobs lost is expected to decline to 8 million from the record 20.5 million cut in April, the total size of payrolls lost is important for any potential recovery.
"It's going to take a very long time to have a complete healing of the labor market because of the magnitude of the jobs that were lost," said Meyer.
Where the job losses are
Friday's report will give more information about where those job losses are through industry breakdowns. While Americans have filed millions of unemployment claims since April, the weekly report doesn't give any information about what industries those workers were in.
Key data in the May jobs report is "the distribution of employment loss, and signs of it becoming more permanent," Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed, told Business Insider.
He'll be watching for cumulative job losses to gauge if cuts are still concentrated in the first-hit sectors, like leisure and hospitality, or are spreading to other parts of the economy.
In addition, Bunker said that the number of workers marked as unemployed on temporary layoff will be an important figure. In April's report, that group of workers made up a majority of the total unemployed.
A change in either data points could be an indication that the "shock has mutated from a coronavirus-sector specific one to a broader, more systematic, economy-wide shock," said Bunker.
Peak unemployment, or further pain ahead?
There could be further pain ahead as the US economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. A consequence of the lockdowns to contain the spread of COVID-19 has been massive unemployment, but the total rate could continue to climb.
"The open question is whether this will mark the peak in unemployment or if there is more damage to come," Eric Winograd, an economist at AllianceBernstein, told Business Insider.
Economists will be watching the headline unemployment rate and additional measures to gauge the fallout. One is the employment-to-population ratio, which shows what percentage of eligible American workers have a job. In April, this measure fell to an all-time low.
If workers continue to stay on the sidelines even as jobs come back, that could mean a much longer recovery is ahead — Americans who don't earn paychecks tend to pull back on spending, which makes up roughly 70% of US gross domestic product.
"It's still very hard to grasp the amount of more persistent weakness that we'll see in the economy on the back of this," said Meyer.