Since the Corona Virus Event started, The US has had over 33 million unemployment claims and lost 21.2 million jobs.

First, a quick primer on why the is a 12 million difference between the unemployment claims and job losses. Unemployment claims are a hard tally. Someone had to personally file a claim to get counted. Job losses is a statistical sampling done by the Department of Labor. It relies on companies revealing their interpretation of the job loss. A furloughed job may not count as a loss. The two typically move close in tandem. Not so when there is this much volatility.

Regardless, lets exam where some of these job losses are occurring. Below are the biggest job loss categories from the Department of Labor. This covers February through April:

Below is the biggest job loss as a percentage of the workforce in those categories. This covers February through April:

There were some areas that added jobs in the February through April time-frame:

One more interesting perspective, here are the job categories that have added jobs from April 2019. They may have lost jobs in the recent months. Considering they are higher than they were a year ago, that could indicate there may be some staying power. If the bulk of the increase was from the February – April 2020 period, we left it off.

Some observations:

  • You do not need a degree in economics to know restaurants, hotels, parks and retail have been hit hard and will take a while to recover.
  • The Gig Economy has taken a hit. We have increasingly heard about how the Gig Economy will transform many things. One third of the Gig Economy participants (Temporary help services) need a new gig.
  • While praising our health care providers who have been on the front lines, it is painful to see Physician Offices and Dental Offices on the biggest job loss lists. While we want those heroes to save us, we are better off in the long run if they keep us healthy so we do not need saving.
  • The increase in Couriers and Messengers is related to the number of packages we order.
  • Seven of the top ten job categories that have a net positive job count in the last 12 months require STEM training.

All the data in this article comes from the Department of Labor.