The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant effect on unemployment in every state, industry, and major demographic group in the United States. This report provides information on which groups have experienced the largest increases in unemployment rates since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Young workers, women, workers with low educational attainment, part-time workers, and racial and ethnic minorities had relatively high unemployment rates in April 2020. Many, but not all, of these groups had relatively high rates in February 2021 as well. The report also compares the overall unemployment rate during the current recession with the unemployment rate experienced during the Great Recession (December 2007 to June 2009). This report shows the following:  The unemployment rate peaked at an unprecedented level, not seen since data collection started in 1948, in April 2020 (14.8%) before declining to a still-elevated level in February 2021 (6.2%) relative to February 2020 (3.5%).

 In April 2020, every state and the District of Columbia reached unemployment rates greater than their highest unemployment rates during the Great Recession. State-level unemployment has since generally declined, although some states’ recoveries have recently showed signs of slowing down or reversing.

 In the early months of the recession, the unemployment rates were highest in industries that provide in-person services. Notably, the leisure and hospitality industry experienced an unemployment rate of 39.3% in April 2020, before declining to 13.5% in February 2021. While rates for service industries remain elevated, other industries with loose attachment to in-person services are now experiencing high rates. For example, the mining industry exhibited an unemployment rate of 19.3% in February 2021, the highest observed among all industries.

 Part-time workers experienced an unemployment rate almost twice that of their full-time counterparts in April 2020 (24.5% vs. 12.9%), but this gap has since effectively closed.

 Workers without a college degree experienced worse unemployment rates in April 2020 (e.g., 21.2% for workers with no high school degree) than workers with a Bachelor’s degree or higher (8.4%). The gap between educated and less-educated workers remained in February 2021.

 Teenaged women experienced an unemployment rate of 36.6% in April 2020, and teenaged men, 28.6%; compared with 13.7% for women and 12.1% for men ages 25-54. The gap between men and women has since narrowed overall, but young workers are still experiencing high rates of unemployment relative to other age categories in February 2021.

 Racial and ethnic minorities had relatively high unemployment rates in April 2020 (16.7% for Black workers compared to 14.2% for White workers, and 18.9% for Hispanic workers compared to 13.6% for non-Hispanic workers), and these gaps persisted in February 2021.