The Labor Department released the April jobs report today. Here are the key takeaways:

Job Loss Highest Since Job Reports Began — The economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April – the largest on record. This eliminated job gains made from the last decade. Similarly, the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 14.7%. This is the largest rate since the BLS began recording in 1948.  For comparison, the peak unemployment rate during the Great Depression was 25.5% (estimated by David Weir of University of Michigan).

Key Takeaway: The American people need to be able to get back to work, or else these numbers will get worse.

Our health-care workers need to be able to see patients for non-COVID-related treatments – 1.4 million health care workers who work in hospitals, physicians’ offices, and nursing care facilities are being put out of work because they’re unable to care for patients.

Key Takeaway: If our goal is to ensure the health and safety of all Americans, we can’t afford to allow our health care sector to lose any more workers.

The Majority of the Job Losses are Temporary, Not Permanent – The amount of temporary job losses increased by ten times from last month – 1.8 million temporary job losses in March and 18 million in April. Compared with permanent job losses – 1.5 million in March and 2.0 million in April. In other words, for every one job lost permanently, nine temporary jobs were lost.

Key Takeaway: The lockdown of the economy to stop the spread of coronavirus must not be made permanent.

People Don’t Want to Stay at Home: Nearly 10 million people who are not in the labor force want a job. This is double the amount in March.

Key Takeaway: Americans are desperate to get back to work. We need to help businesses open back up safely so workers can move back into the labor force as health conditions permit.

Few people in the private sector have job security – Over 17 million jobs lost last month were service-oriented—whether a truck driver, or a health care worker—compared to 2.3 million jobs lost by those who produce goods, as in manufacturing. In other words, for every job lost in the goods industry, the service industry lost seven jobs.

Key Takeaway: Our economy has thrived on the diversity of goods and services provided by workers—and keeping workers at home means the situation is likely to get worse.

Servers, bartenders, and cooks are hit particularly hard – The Leisure and Hospitality sector had the largest amount of job losses at nearly 7.7 million jobs lost – nearly 45% of all service producing jobs. Bars and restaurants lost 5.5 million jobs or about 71% of all Leisure and Hospitality jobs.

Key Takeaway: Your favorite restaurants will take an even harder hit if fewer people can afford to eat out because of unemployment. Restarting our economy is the most important thing we can do for the service industry.

Want to read more on the fight against Coronavirus? Read our Coronavirus Bulletin here which contains our extensive FAQ about recent federal actions.

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