Coronavirus: Double-Digit Jobless Rates Loom In California

Apr. 1--A grim spike in statewide jobless claims unleashed by the economic fallout of the coronavirus could plunge California into double-digit unemployment rates last seen during 2012 in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has estimated, based on daily tracking by the state government, that California has received since roughly mid-March about 1.6 million claims for unemployment insurance, which could translate into a jobless rate that tops 12 percent.

The math is potentially scary, but the estimates on how the jobless rate might look this spring are based on economic data released by the state's Employment Development Department, coupled with some assumptions about the California job market.

In the last official release by the EDD, California had 759,100 unemployed residents, with a total labor pool of 19.5 million, a labor force that consists of employed and unemployed residents. Add the governor's calculation of 1.6 million unemployment claims, that would lead to 2.36 million jobless residents.

If the number of unemployed residents was to reach the 2.36 million range, and the labor force remained at 19.5 million, that would point to a jobless rate of 12.1 percent.

A 12 percent jobless number would be at the level of the double-digit rates that battered California from February 2009 through September 2012.

The forbidding peak of that stretch of more than three years of double-digit jobless rates came in October and November of 2010 when the California unemployment rate worsened to 12.3 percent, the EDD statistics show.

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