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Even as states begin to reopen for business, a further 2.4 million workers joined the nation’s unemployment rolls last week, and there is growing concern among economists that many of the lost jobs are gone for good. The Labor Department’s report of new jobless claims, released Thursday, brought the total to 38.6 million since mid-March, when the coronavirus outbreak forced widespread shutdowns. While workers and their employers have expressed optimism that most of the joblessness will be temporary, many who are studying the pandemic’s impact are increasingly worried about the employment situation. (Cohen, 5/21)

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits in the two months since the coronavirus took hold in the U.S. has swelled to nearly 39 million, the government reported Thursday, even as states from coast to coast gradually reopen their economies and let people go back to work. More than 2.4 million people filed for unemployment last week in the latest wave of layoffs from the business shutdowns that have brought the economy to its knees, the Labor Department said. That brings the running total to a staggering 38.6 million, a job-market collapse unprecedented in its speed. (Rugaber and Kirka, 5/22)

The economic impact of the pandemic is staggering. The latest numbers on unemployment claims came out this morning: 2.4 million workers filed for unemployment last week, which means at least 38.6 million Americans — about 23.4 percent of the workforce — have lost their jobs over the past nine weeks as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the economy. (For some context: In normal times, the number of weekly unemployment claims usually hovers around a couple hundred thousand.) (Kingsberry, 5/21)

That's more than one in five American workers using an unemployment insurance system first established decades ago to serve a very different population. It was 1935 and the country was struggling to emerge from the Great Depression. The system's focus was people who worked in medium-to-large manufacturing or in trade industries, says Indivar Dutta-Gupta, co-executive director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. (Donevan and Hsu, 5/21)

Millions of newly impoverished people are turning to the charitable organizations known as food banks. Mile-long lines of cars, waiting for bags of free food, have become one of the most striking images of the current economic crisis. Donations are up, too, including from a new billion-dollar government effort called the Farmers to Families Food Box Program. (Charles, 5/22)

California state lawmakers unleashed their frustrations about the state's unemployment system Thursday, demanding answers from an agency director about the problems their jobless constituents have endured trying to access the financial lifeline during the pandemic. "We’ve never heard the type of suffering people are experiencing right now," said Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco). "The feedback we’re getting is atrocious." (Murphy, 5/21)

Facebook said on Thursday that it would allow many employees to work from home permanently. But there’s a catch: They may not be able to keep their big Silicon Valley salaries in more affordable parts of the country. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, told workers during a staff meeting that was livestreamed on his Facebook page that within a decade as many as half of the company’s more than 48,000 employees would work from home. (Conger, 5/21)

Growing up as the oldest girl among 10 siblings in a large Catholic family in Detroit, Mary Kay Henry learned the power of collective action at an early age. Sometimes, she and her older brother would have to get all their siblings ready for school, packing lunches, getting kids dressed and shepherding everyone on to the bus. “When there’s a group that shares a mission and everybody has a job to do, things that seem impossible are possible,” she said. “That’s my guiding star.” (Gelles, 5/22)

Amazon announced Thursday that another one of its warehouse workers died from complications associated with the coronavirus. The recent death marks eight employees the tech giant has lost because of the disease. The employee who passed was a woman who had been with the company since November 2018. She was staffed at Amazon's fulfillment center just outside of Cleveland in North Randall, Ohio, according to NBC News. (Johnson, 5/21)

Companies from major retailers and package carriers to local restaurants and hair salons are awakening to a new economic reality in the age of the new coronavirus: Being open for business is almost as hard as being closed. Facing higher costs to keep workers and customers safe and an indefinite period of suppressed demand, businesses are navigating an ever-narrower path to profitability. To make the math work, some businesses are cutting services and jobs. Others are raising prices, including imposing coronavirus-related fees aimed at getting customers to share some of the expenses. (Grossman, 5/22)