Less Than Half Of Los Angeles County Residents Report Having Jobs, Survey Finds.
According to a University of Southern California study, Los Angeles has been one of the American cities hit hardest by unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic, with just less than half Los Angeles County residents reporting that they held a job in April.
USC Dornsife’s study found that in early April, only 45% of L.A. County residents reported holding a job, a 16% downward slide from mid-March and estimated to represent about 1.3 million lost jobs in the Los Angeles area alone.
That’s significantly more than the nationwide average rate of self-reported jobs, which only fell 10 percentage points from 62% to 52% between March from April for the rest of the country, according to the survey.
The U.S. Department of Labors’ latest weekly unemployment report showed 660,966 Californians filed for unemployment—totaling about one in seven Californian workers having filed for unemployment in total.
The hospitality industry, one of the Los Angeles area’s largest—nearly 15% of the workforce, or more than 800,000 people, across L.A. County and Orange County work in hospitality—has been hit particularly hard by coronavirus-spurred layoffs, as more Americans stay home.
Because unemployment claims are filed with states, it’s difficult to track specific cities’ layoff numbers—but a report released this week from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Louisiana saw the biggest increase in March unemployment numbers of any state compared to the previous year, as coronavirus cases in New Orleans and surrounding parishes spread rapidly.
According to the USC survey, black Americans are more likely to have lost their jobs since mid-March, with 21% nationwide reporting job losses, compared to 18% of Latinos and 15% of white people.
BIG NUMBER
25.5 million. The number of jobs that the survey suggests have been lost nationwide since mid-March. Since the coronavirus crisis began, 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment, and Goldman Sachs GS analysts expect claims could reach 37 million by the end of May. Experts say it could take years for unemployment numbers to bounce back to pre-coronavirus figures.
KEY BACKGROUND
The Understanding Coronavirus in America Study tracks a panel of nearly 5,500 adults nationwide about how the coronavirus pandemic has affected them—the study’s most recent survey took place during the first two weeks of April, and researchers compared the answers to a similar survey given from March 10 to March 31. California has seen nearly 30,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 1,000 deaths as of Saturday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University, while the U.S. as a whole has recorded more than 718,000 cases and nearly 38,000 deaths.