Financial website reports Manchester had 10th-highest U.S. city unemployment rate in April

WASHINGTON – This month, the website WalletHub released a study indicating that Manchester’s unemployment rate for April 2020 was 20.0%, tenth highest among 180 American cities included in the study.

According to the study, Manchester saw 658.66 percent year-over-year growth in its unemployment rate between April 2019 and April 2020, with a 539.21 percent spike between April 2020 and January 2020.

The city with the highest unemployment rate in the study was Las Vegas (31.6 percent) and the lowest was New Haven, CT (6.9 percent).

WalletHub also discovered that New Hampshire’s unemployment claims as a whole have jumped 813.33 percent between the first week of June. New Hampshire also saw a year-over-year spike of 3,603.94 percent in claims between March 18 and June 10 this year and the same timeframe last year.

Methodology

WalletHub compared 180 cities based on three key metrics. We looked at the change in each city’s unemployment rate during the latest month for which we have data (April 2020) compared to April 2019 and January 2020. We also considered each city’s overall unemployment rate. Read on for the results, additional commentary from a panel of experts and a full description of our methodology.

Please note that this report relies on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which recently disclosed that it misclassified many workers on temporary layoffs as “absent from work because of other reasons” rather than “unemployed.” Therefore, the real unemployment rate may be around 33 percent higher than reported. For this reason, WalletHub has included two columns for the unemployment rate in the table below, one with the officially reported unemployment rate and one with the “adjusted” rate after accounting for the misclassification.

It’s hard to overstate just how disastrous the COVID-19 pandemic has been for U.S. employment. In total, the country has lost nearly 41 million jobs, wiping out years of gains since the last big economic crisis, the Great Recession. To put that number in perspective, it’s 25% of all adults in the workforce. While cities across the country have begun to reopen certain businesses in accordance with their states’ guidelines, it will likely take a long time for the unemployment rate to return to the historic low it experienced prior to the coronavirus crisis. Some cities’ jobs have weathered the storm better than others, though.

In order to identify where workers have been most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, WalletHub compared 180 cities based on three key metrics. We looked at the change in each city’s unemployment rate during the latest month for which we have data (April 2020) compared to April 2019 and January 2020. We also considered each city’s overall unemployment rate. Read on for the results, additional commentary from a panel of experts and a full description of our methodology.

Please note that this report relies on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which recently disclosed that it misclassified many workers on temporary layoffs as “absent from work because of other reasons” rather than “unemployed.” Therefore, the real unemployment rate may be around 33 percent higher than reported. For this reason, WalletHub has included two columns for the unemployment rate in the table below, one with the officially reported unemployment rate and one with the “adjusted” rate after accounting for the misclassification.

Cities Top 10) with the Biggest Increases in Unemployment Rates Due to Coronavirus

Full list and more information here.