But here's the shock graph, courtesy of Barry Ritholtz:
click to enlarge
This one has negative second derivative, by the looks of it, which means that not only are people losing jobs, job losses are accelerating.
Which is way more scary than the current unemployment rate in and of itself.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
In reality, the steepest post-war recession in the US was the immediate Post-War recession, which is masked by the use of numbers of jobs lost rather than jobs as a percentage of the population ... but while that was quite steep, it was also met with prompt and strong post-war economic reconstruction policies, so the recovery was also quick. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Current job losses are roughly on a par with 1976 and 1984.
Coincidence? or am I just intentionally misreading the graph Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
things have really been in decline since 1980?
YoY employment changes are trending downwards, but at the same time, the unemployment rate is also trending downwards. And in this time frame, the total workforce was growing.
That's impossible. Something Has To Give.
(Un)employment data are by definition percentages of a total population willing and able to work, statutory bounds being 15 < age < death. The BLS JOLT datasets claim to count available employment, or jobs open, or unmet demand, which is silly. But entirely consistent with the current policy assumption that labor skills are fungible. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
If we get an inflection now, we might hope to turn the corner at -5%, but -3% seems wildly optimistic. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
... and even more to the point, the latest monthly employment figures release showed U6 unemployment at 15.4%, so this makes over a quarter that U6 unemployment been (1) increasing and (2) increasing at an increasing rate.
The rest of the employment statistics confirms what the percentage decline in payroll employment suggests ... at the moment, employment is in free fall.
If the Us stimulus bill passes, it will of course not be enough to reverse that movement, but it might be enough to slow the rate of descent, which would be something of use. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Obviously, that's not where Bernanke's at right now. Rates are already at zero, deflation is the current state, and we're basically in a place where we're testing out theories Bernanke on Fed interventionism beyond the normal funds rate.
The chart looks really bad, even adjusting for population. We're basically looking at declines in employment roughly equivalent to the '73 oil crisis already. The crash is still accelerating, and we're already in the second-worst recession in the Postwar Era. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
