U.S. Private Sector Reports Historic Job Losses

Unemployment rates continue to skyrocket in the U.S., and a new report shows an historic loss of over 20 million private sector jobs in just the month of April.

A new monthly report from management software company ADP shows the U.S. lost an astounding 20.2 million nonfarm private sector jobs in April – the most in recorded history for the metric. Those losses were spread over a wide variety of businesses and industries, with small businesses of less than 50 employees losing over 6 million jobs and large businesses of over 500 employees losing nearly 9 million.

Industries hit hardest include hotels and travel companies with by far the most jobs lost at over 8.6 million in April. Trade, transportation and utilities companies also took a hit, losing 3.4 million jobs, followed closely by construction companies with almost 2.5 million lost jobs.

To put this unprecedented event of unemployment in perspective, job losses in April were more than double the total amount of jobs lost during the Great Recession. Some of these jobs will come back once the virus is more under control, however with no end in sight, many of these jobs may be permanently gone if businesses close.