The April jobs report was every bit as bad as everybody worried it would be. The climb back will be slow and painful. The Labor Department on Friday reported that the economy shed 20.5 million jobs last month, lowering payroll employment by 13.5%, as the novel coronavirus crisis put wide swaths of the labor market out of work. No month on record—not even September 1945, when the end of World War II idled factory lines and payrolls fell by 4.8%—comes close.

Source: Wall Street Journal May 08, 2020 15:43 UTC