Pandemic risks exacerbating economic and social divisions between countries

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The coronavirus pandemic threatens the future of the eurozone by creating huge economic divisions between its 19-member states during what is expected to be the deepest recession since the Great Depression, the European commission has warned.

The EU’s economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said there was an urgent need to mitigate the inevitable exacerbation of existing social and economic fissures, as countries emerge at different speeds from the unprecedented economic downturn.

The Treasury cannot afford to spend £10bn a month indefinitely, but a cliff-edge end to Covid-19 wage subsidies is not the answer

What’s the safest way for Rishi Sunak to wind down his wage-support furlough scheme? Well, start by finding the correct language. The imagery in the current political talk about “weaning” businesses off an “addiction” is absurd.

When the chancellor introduced the coronavirus job retention scheme on 20 March, he said it was to “protect, as far as possible, people’s jobs and incomes”. There will be trouble if, less than two months later and with lockdown still in place, companies and their workers are portrayed as needy infants or addicts who should know better.

Pace of layoffs tests states’ unemployment benefits fund as 33m jobless Americans make claims in past seven weeks

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Another three million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to exact its terrible toll on the US jobs market.

More than 33 million jobless Americans have now made claims in the past seven weeks.

With biggest plunge in output in 300 years being predicted, we explore why the last great recession happened

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Queen Anne was on the throne. Work had just started on Blenheim Palace in honour of John Churchill’s victories over Louis XIV’s French armies in the war of Spanish succession. The union between England and Scotland was imminent.

1706 is how far economic historians have to look back to find a slump bigger than the one that now threatens the country as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Related: UK unemployment to double and economy to shrink by 14%, warns Bank of England

Oil price rises and shares end week on a high despite growing economic damage from coronavirus pandemic

Global markets rose on Friday despite mounting economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic, as tensions eased between the White House and Beijing.

Share prices on Wall Street and in Europe ended the week on a high amid rising hopes that lockdown measures could be lifted soon to reboot growth and that a full-blown global trade war could be averted.

Related: US Nasdaq index recovers all of 2020's losses triggered by Covid-19

More than 20m Americans lost their jobs in April – and Friday’s report suggests there might be much more trouble ahead

• Jobs figures: April worst month since Great Depression

Friday was a dark day for the US economy. The labor department announced more than 20 million people lost their jobs in April as the coronavirus shut down much of the economy.

Here are five key takeaways from a report that will enter the history books as the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

This was the #JobsReport everyone was fearing & for good reason: 20M jobs lost. For African Americans unemployment rose to 16.7% & a similar jump for Whites to 14.2%.

This gives a historically low ratio of 1.3. Of course that means it took a pandemic to get these rates closer. pic.twitter.com/XPIG57BpJi

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