WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Thursday's record unemployment figures from the U.S. Department of Labor revealed the harsh reality that roughly 10 million Americans filed for unemployment in the last two weeks of March. With the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging U.S. businesses, Gallup's latest data show that U.S. workers are increasingly seeing the effects at their workplaces.
In polling conducted March 30-April 2, U.S. workers are more likely to report that their employers have frozen hiring (40%) and cut hours or shifts (33%) than that they have cut jobs (13%). Between March 24 and April 2, workers' reports of hiring freezes at their places of employment rose seven percentage points, and those seeing cuts to hours increased six points.
| Mar 24-26 | Mar 27-29 | Mar 30-Apr 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| % | % | % | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Frozen hiring | 33 | 39 | 40 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reduced hours or shifts | 27 | 31 | 33 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cut jobs | 11 | 14 | 13 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GALLUP PANEL, 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nearly four in five workers say the coronavirus is having a negative effect on their workplace, including 24% who say it is very and 53% somewhat negative. Fourteen percent say it is not having any effect and 9% say it is having a somewhat or very positive effect.
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