Economists forecast another 3 million Americans filed for unemployment last week

• Economists forecast that 3 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the week ending May 2, according to Bloomberg data.
• If the Thursday report comes in near expectations, it would be the fifth week in a row of declining yet elevated unemployment insurance claims.
• "We're continuing to expect claims to remain elevated as now this second wave comes through" different sectors of the economy, Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel, told Business Insider.
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Economists expect that the number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance declined again last week, but remained elevated as the coronavirus pandemic continues to slam the labor market.

The median economist estimate is 3 million jobless claims in the week ending May 2, according to Bloomberg data. If the Thursday report from the Labor Department is near the estimate, it would be less than the 3.8 million claims filed in the previous week and the fifth report in a row to show a decline.

Still, it's important to note that 3 million applications for unemployment insurance benefits in one week is high, compared to both pre-coronavirus levels and the Great Recession, when the worst week of job losses racked up 665,000 claims.

As much of the US remains in lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, "it's not just restaurants closing down, but we're seeing secondary and tertiary impacts on other small businesses and medium-sized businesses," Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel, told Business Insider.

She continued: "We're continuing to expect claims to remain elevated as now this second wave comes through these different sectors of the economy."

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Still, declining claims are a step in the right direction. And, some states have started to slowly open their economies, which may help workers regain employment.

Hopefully, the situation will continue to improve and weekly claims will dwindle to between 1 million and 2 million by the end of May, Piegza said.

The report will be released just one day before the April jobs report, due Friday from the Labor Department. Following nearly two months of high weekly jobless claims, economists expect that the report will be devastating — Bank of America is forecasting that the US economy lost 22 million jobs in April and that the unemployment rate spiked to 15% from 4.4% in March.

The private sector report from ADP Wednesday set the stage for Friday, showing that US companies lost 20.2 million jobs in April, the largest monthly decline on record.

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