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Report: Jacksonville Unemployment Has Jumped 39% Since January

Downtown Jacksonville as seen from the Southbank.
BILL BORTZFIELD / WJCT NEWS
Downtown Jacksonville as seen from the Southbank.

A new study finds Florida has seen the biggest unemployment increase in the country over the past week, due to COVID-19.

According to WalletHub, the increase in Florida unemployment claims is staggering, rising 9,264.77% as of April 20, as compared to the week of January 1, 2020.

Jacksonville has also been hit hard. Wallethub found Jacksonville’s unemployment jumped 38.99% in March as compared to January.

Related: Local, State, And National Coronavirus Coverage

Comparing March 2019 to March 2020, unemployment in Jacksonville was up 37.89% year over year.

Nationwide, WalletHub found the country has lost over 30.3 million jobs, which equates to 18% of all adults in the workforce.

That’s worse than during the recovery decade after the Great Depression, when unemployment remained above 14%.

It's also worse than the peak of the Great Recession, when unemployment reached 10% in October 2009,  according to The Balance.  The nation's jobless rate is also higher than in the early 80s when unemployment peaked at 10.1% in September 1982.

The current nationwide unemployment numbers are inching closer to those last seen at the deepest point of the Great Depression, which saw peak unemployment of 24.9% in 1933, according to The Balance.

Bill Bortzfield can be reached at bbortzfield@wjct.org or on Twitter at @BortzInJax.

Bill joined WJCT News in September of 2017 from The Florida Times-Union, where he served in a variety of multimedia journalism positions.