Private payrolls hemorrhaged more than 20 million jobs in April as companies sliced workers amid a coronavirus-induced shutdown that took most of the U.S. economy offline, according to a report Wednesday from ADP.
In all, according to the human resources company, the decline totaled 20,236,000 — easily the worst loss in the survey’s history going back to 2002 but not as bad as the 22 million that economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting.
ADP goes on to say the previous record was 834,665 in February 2009 amid the financial crisis and accompanying Great Recession.
The report likely still understates the actual damage done during the implementation of social distancing measures. ADP used the week of April 12 as its sample period, similar to the method the U.S. Labor Department uses for its official non-farm payrolls count. The subsequent weeks in the month saw some 8.3 million more Americans file for unemployment benefits and economists expect another three million last week.
In all, more than 30 million have filed claims over the past six weeks.
The April total comes after a drop of 149,000 in March, revised lower from the initially reported 26,594.
