The U.S. unemployment rate is likely to move up to around 20% this month from an already historically high 14.7%, a White House adviser said on Friday, adding the economy should transition to stronger footing in the summer.

"I think that again the next one should be around 20," White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told CNN after the government reported the jobless rate shattered a post-World War Two record.

"I think we're going to enter a transition period this summer before we have sort of another reignition of the economy."

The U.S. economy lost a staggering 20.5 million jobs in April, the steepest plunge in payrolls since the Great Depression and the starkest sign yet of how the novel coronavirus pandemic is battering the world's biggest economy.

The Labor Department's closely watched monthly employment report on Friday also showed the unemployment rate surging to 14.7% last month, shattering the post-World War Two record of 10.8% touched in November 1982. It strengthened analysts' views of a slow recovery from the recession caused by lockdowns imposed by states and local governments in mid-March to curb the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

The economic crisis spells trouble for President Donald Trump's bid for a second term in the White House in November's election. After the Trump administration was criticized for its initial reaction to the pandemic, Trump is eager to reopen the economy, despite a continued rise in COVID-19 infections and dire projections of deaths.

"If there is a silver-lining in today's dismal jobs report, it is in the realization that the economy cannot possibly get any worse than it is right now," said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. "Joblessness can only diminish from this point forward as many states start reopening."

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast nonfarm payrolls diving by 22 million. Data for March was revised to show 870,000 jobs lost instead of 701,000 as previously reported. A record streak of job growth dating to October 2010 ended in March.

The jaw-dropping job losses in the last two months pushed nonfarm employment to its lowest level since February 2011. Job losses were almost across the board, with leisure and hospitality industry payrolls plunging 7.7 million. Restaurants and bars accounted for nearly three-quarters of the decline.

Ironically, healthcare employment declined by 1.4 million jobs, with decreases at offices of dentists, doctors, other health practitioners and hospitals.