Washington lost half a million jobs in April, a record drop in employment as the economic vice of the COVID-19 pandemic clamped down.

Figures released Wednesday showed sharp drops in jobs in sectors that cover restaurants and bars, construction, education and health care. The state unemployment rate tripled, from 5.1% to 15.4%. It’s slightly ahead of the national unemployment rate of 14.7%.

Employment usually ticks up slightly from March to April. This year it dropped like a large rock in a pond, with ripples spreading across most industry sectors.

Paul Turek, labor economist for the state Employment Security Department, said the numbers aren’t surprising, considering the record number of claims for unemployment benefits being filed.

The rate of job losses is much faster than the recession of the previous decade and is likely unprecedented in state history. Good statistics don’t exist for the Great Depression, he said.

“We’ve never been through something like this before. It’s pretty much an abrupt shutdown of the economy,” Turek said. “There’s a real good chance of (unemployment numbers) going up next month.”

State officials are allowing some businesses to resume operations in a series of phases, and that may be reflected in unemployment figures for May, which will be released in the third week of June. But restarts might only show up as job losses not being as severe.

It’s also hard to predict the effect of businesses that rush to open ahead of the state’s reopening guidelines in violation of the rules versus those that get the green light to open but wait because of concerns about safety or customers, Turek said.

Based on a survey of employer payrolls on April 12, an estimated 190,700 jobs were lost in the leisure and hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment. Restaurants were barred from offering dine-in service, and some provided takeout and delivery with reduced staffs.

The number of people who lost jobs in that sector alone was nearly as large as the total state unemployment for March and was greater than the total number of unemployed Washington workers in April 2019.

The next biggest sector for job losses was construction, which was down 81,000 jobs based on the survey. Construction was severely limited in the initial shutdown order that allowed only certain projects to continue, but some work was allowed to resume in April with strict on-site guidelines for protective gear and distances between workers.

The education and health services sector, which includes medical and dental offices and care for the elderly, dropped 59,400 jobs. Retail trade dropped 32,900, as many stores were closed in March and only recently were allowed to make curbside deliveries to customers who order online or over the phone.

The manufacturing sector lost 31,000 jobs, a combination of shutdowns in aerospace and food processing facilities.

Turek said it really didn’t take an economist to predict job losses for April would be bad: “All we have to do is look around.”