Washington — A record 26-million Americans have sought unemployment benefits over the past five weeks, confirming that all the jobs created during the longest employment boom in US history were wiped out in about a month, as the novel coronavirus savages the US economy.

The labour department said on Thursday that 4.427-million more people applied for unemployment benefits for the first time last week, down from a revised 5.237-million the week before. The median expectation among economists in a Reuters poll was for claims to have fallen to 4.2-million last week, although estimates had ranged as high as 5.5-million...

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