Tennessee's latest weekly unemployment claims rose to a record-breaking number.
For the week ending March 28, 2020, 94,492 initial claims for unemployment benefits were filed. That's up from 39,096 filed the week before, according to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
The new number of filed claims is huge compared to that of two weeks ago: 2,702.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor, it's the state's largest number of new claims in a single week. The closest record was set nearly thirty years ago; 52,529 claims were filed the week ending on Jan. 11,1992.
The most claims filed during any given week during the last recession was 30,914.
The same day, national unemployment levels also rose to unprecedented levels.
More than 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, far exceeding a record high set just last week. It's a sign that layoffs are accelerating in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The job cuts are mounting against the backdrop of economies in the United States and abroad that have almost certainly sunk into a severe recession as businesses close across the world.
Last week's figure is much higher than the previous record of 3.3 million reported for the previous week. The surging layoffs have led many economists to envision as many as 20 million lost jobs by the end of April.