AUSTIN, Texas -- Another 247,000 Texans filed for unemployment last week. That brings the total number of new claims in the state to about 1.8 million in the past seven weeks since Gov. Greg Abbott declared the coronavirus pandemic a statewide emergency.

A small bright spot: last week's numbers are down another 9 percent from the week before. Nationwide, 3.2 million people filed for unemployment last week.

A Texas-based economist says as the state reopens, those unemployment numbers will decrease, but don’t expect a huge economic surge.

“I don't think we can really depend on a big burst of economic activity to bring people back to work at this stage. But the fact that new unemployment claims in Texas are coming down is encouraging, but very much expected at this stage,” said Dr. Michael Sadler, a professor of economics and finance at UT Austin.

Sadler warns about a resurgence of cases and what that could mean if businesses allowed to reopen are forced to close again to try to minimize the spread.

“That's generally the concern amongst all of us - we're not going to have a V-shaped recovery, a U-shaped recovery, but a W-shaped recovery,” he said.

Click the video link above to watch our full interview with Sadler.