Business ground to a halt during the pandemic lockdown in the spring of this year, and America plunged into its first recession in 11 years, putting an end to the longest economic expansion in US history and wiping out five years of economic gains in just a few months.

A recession is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the economy. Between January and March, GDP declined by an annualized rate of 5%.
In  April, more than 20 million American jobs vanished as businesses closed and most of the country was under stay-at-home orders. It was the biggest drop in jobs since record-keeping began more than 80 years ago. Claims for unemployment benefits skyrocketed and have still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

While the labor market has been rebounding since states began to reopen, bringing millions back to work, the country is still down nearly 15 million jobs since February. Next week's July jobs report is expected to show another 2.3 million jobs added. That would bring the unemployment rate down to 10.3% — still higher than during the worst period of the financial crisis.

The pandemic has also taken a devastating blow on the Pakistani economy.

"Pakistan's economy is shrinking, unemployment is rising and various sectors are in crisis,"