A record 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country. The much-anticipated Labor Department report for the week ended March 21 was one of the first official indicators of how many people have suddenly been forced out of work nationally.

In the week ending March 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 3,283,000, an increase of 3,001,000 from the previous week's revised level. In the prior report, for the week ended March 14, initial claims totaled 282,000, the Labor Department reported.

"This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series," the department said of the latest figure. "The previous high was 695,000 in October of 1982." The Labor Department's records go back to 1967.

The increase in initial claims are due to the impacts of the COVID-19 virus. Nearly every state providing comments cited the COVID-19 virus impacts. States continued to cite services industries broadly, particularly accommodation and food services. Additional industries heavily cited for the increases included the health care and social assistance, arts, entertainment and recreation, transportation and warehousing, and manufacturing industries.

Read the full report here.