WASHINGTON, May 8 — President Donald Trump today downplayed unprecedented US job losses, saying they were not a surprise.

"It’s fully expected, there’s no surprise. Somebody said, ‘oh look at this,’” he said on Fox News minutes after the Labor Department published the figures.

"I’ll bring it back,” he said.

An unprecedented collapse in April driven by the coronavirus fallout sent the unemployment rate to 14.7 per cent, well beyond the peak hit in late 2009 during the global financial crisis. The jobless rate in March was 4.4 per cent. — AFP