WASHINGTON — The number of laid-off workers seeking U.S. unemployment aid barely fell last week, and the reopening of small businesses has leveled off — evidence that the job market’s gains may have stalled just as a surge in coronavirus cases is endangering an economic recovery.

The government also reported Thursday that the economy contracted at a 5 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, a further sign of the damage being inflicted by the viral pandemic.

The economy is expected to shrink at a roughly 30 percent rate in the current quarter. That would be the worst quarterly contraction, by far, since record-keeping began in 1948. Economists do expect a snap-back in the second half of the year, though not enough to reverse all the damage.

Last week, the number of people applying for jobless benefits declined slightly to 1.48 million. An additional 700,000 people applied through a program for self-employed and gig workers that made them eligible for aid for the first time. These figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal variations, so the government doesn’t include them in the official count.

Combining those figures, overall applications for jobless aid have edged down just 3 percent in the past two weeks — a much slower pace than in late April and May.

“There has been no real decline in weekly claims the past two weeks,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. “There has also been no real increase in job openings. What seemed like encouraging signs of recovery in May largely stalled in June.”

A separate government report Thursday said orders for durable goods unexpectedly jumped nearly 16 percent in May. Still, the pace of orders and shipments remains far below pre-pandemic levels.

Real time data on small businesses suggests that the job market’s improvement slowed in June compared with May, when 2.5 million jobs were unexpectedly added. About 78 percent of small businesses have reopened as states have lifted shutdown orders, according to data from Homebase, a company that provides scheduling and time-tracking software to small businesses. Nationally, that figure has been flat for a week.