Nearly 275,000 Ohioans and 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week — both record numbers that indicate a stunning acceleration of job loss as the novel coronavirus grips the U.S. economy.

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported Thursday that 272,117 claims from Ohioans were reported March 22-28 to the U.S. Department of Labor, which also announced Thursday the two-week total of COVID-19-related claims across the nation reached nearly 10 million — far more than the figure for any corresponding period on record.

The two-week total in Ohio was 468,414. For some context, for all of 2019 in Ohio, 364,603 claims were filed.

Claims numbers in the past two weeks have “obliterated” previous numbers, said Gus Faucher, chief economist for Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services.

“The coronavirus outbreak and the public health response are wreaking havoc on the labor market. Four weeks ago, claims were at 211,000, near a 50-year low. Now they are more than 30 times that level as firms lay off millions of workers in response to restrictions on movement and reduced demand,” Faucher said.

“Job losses over the next couple of months are likely to be in the millions. The recently passed stimulus bill contains incentives for businesses to retain their workers, and it’s possible that some of these layoffs will turn out to be temporary. But even so, U.S. job losses will likely set records over the next few months.”

WHAT OHIO IS DOING

Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said Ohio JFS is managing the burden caused by the surge in unemployment claims by adding staff — 300 new employees to the call center already and up to 1,000 more by the end of next week — and by increasing the system’s capacity.

“They are bringing this online as fast as they can, but we know for some of you, it is not fast enough. But it continues to improve,” Husted said at the state’s daily COVID-19 briefing Thursday.

County-by-county stats for last week could be available as early as today, but numbers from the week prior, March 15-21, show Mahoning County had 4,560 initial unemployment claims, and Trumbull County had 3,614 claims.

The state also created a jobs portal for essential businesses that need employees and for Ohioans looking for work. The site, coronavirus.ohio.gov. / jobsearch, can be searched by city, region or across Ohio.

As of 2:30 p.m. Thursday, nearly 12,000 job postings had been uploaded, populated, in part, by companies in the personal protective equipment industry, grocery stores and food supply chain, pharmacies and tech companies.

NATIONAL PICTURE

The report from the Labor Department showed job cuts are mounting against the backdrop of economies in the United States and abroad that almost certainly have sunk into a severe recession as businesses have shut down across the world.

Further signs of a surging wave of layoffs are likely in the coming weeks. Seth Carpenter, an economist at Swiss bank UBS, estimates about one-third of last week’s claims had been delayed from the previous week, when state offices that handle unemployment benefits were overwhelmed by a surge of online and telephone claims. Yet many of those offices still are struggling to process all the claims they have received, suggesting more claims will be pushed into the following week.

The magnitude of the layoffs has led many economists to envision as many as 20 million lost jobs by the end of April. That would be more than double the 8.7 million jobs lost during the Great Recession. The unemployment rate could spike to as high as 15 percent this month, above the previous record of 10.8 percent set during a deep recession in 1982.

How long the waves of layoffs last — an unknown — will be a key factor in determining the depth of the recession. Some companies are maintaining ties to laid-off workers, in hopes of rehiring them once the coronavirus outbreak passes. Relatively swift rehirings would help the economy rebound quickly. But if business shutdowns persist into the late summer or fall, many smaller businesses likely will go bankrupt. That would make it harder for workers to find jobs and would prolong the downturn.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

By the numbers

Jobless claims filed in Ohio:

• 196,297 filed March 15-21

• 272,117 filed March 22-28

• 468,414 filed March 15-28

• 364,603 claims filed in 2019

• More than $45 million paid to 108,000 people in Ohio so far

Jobless claims filed in US:

• Nearly 10 million filed March 15-28

• More than 6.6 million claims filed March 22-28

Sources: Ohio Department of Job and Family Services / U.S. Department of Labor