Last Hired, First Fired: Job-Loss Stories in the Virus Recession (3)

The U.S. is in the midst of an historic crisis that’s turned back the clock on more than a decade’s worth of labor market gains for workers across several demographics. Figures due Friday are expected to show the national jobless rate surged in April to 14.7%, the highest in monthly data going back to the 1940s.

Unemployment rates for black Americans and Hispanics fell to historic lows during a record-long economic expansion that saw the overall jobless rate drop to a half-century low. Women entered the labor market at an increasingly high pace, and as of December they made up the majority ...