New numbers show that Minnesota’s unemployment rate climbed to 8.1 percent last month.

This is the highest figure since 1983.  The data was published on Thursday. The new data shows there were about 332,000 fewer Minnesota residents working in April than in March, with 160,000 of those newly unemployed. The overall workforce was 2.7 million in April, down from about 3 million for most of 2019.

The leisure and hospitality sector was hit rthe hardest as 55 percent of workers lost their jobs. Next up were retail jobs, which fell by 10 percent.  Education and health service jobs fell by 9.3 percent. Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs are down by 6.7 percent, government jobs by 6.5 percent, professional service jobs by 5.3 percent and construction jobs by 3 percent.

Across the U.S., unemployment claims were up 2.4 million this week bringing the total since the coronavirus hit the U.S. to 38.5 million Americans losing their jobs.