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The Lone Gunman
March 7, 2010 12:35 PM
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Need a little help here understanding the graphs--is the projection based on past experience that we have another 6-8 months to go before we might see an upswing in employment?

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nygenxer
March 8, 2010 1:43 PM
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If one looks to the last depression for guidance, unless drastic measures are taken (and they won't be), the reality that we are in a depression will be obvious to even our dumbest citizens by this time next year.

Most people have this distorted idea (from TV, movies) of the time line involved in the last depression. People think that the stock market crashed in October 1929 and within a few weeks or months, soup lines extended 'round the block. That's not true: it took years after the crash for the momentum of the 1920s to slow down/stop until things got bad.

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Gorbachev
March 7, 2010 6:52 PM
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Economists and other researchers are anticipating a LOOOOONG jobless recovery. I've seen research that states it may take a decade or more for the job situation to improve.

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ludwigk
March 7, 2010 12:44 PM
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There's no projections in the graph. The previous lines are all historical data, the current (dark purple - or the one that dips down to 94% for the colorblind out there) line, which goes to 27 months is just 2007 till now.

The good news is that, based on back-of-napkin, armchair statistician, first-look impressions, the curve seems to have bottomed out, meaning that recover should come next, added there's not double-dip. Bad news is that if the curve follows the other curves' shape, it might be another 30 months to a full recovery.

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SenorBob
March 7, 2010 1:01 PM
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\"the curve seems to have bottomed out\"

Yeah, that's what it looked like around month 23, and yet it still dropped even farther....

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humphrmi
March 7, 2010 12:35 PM
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Well, on the upside (pardon the pun), we're pretty clearly at the bottom of the U. Also, it takes advantage of minute scale to make things look worse... the delta between the 1981-3 bottom and the 2007-present bottom is - what, .03 points? 0.97 vs. 0.94? Whatever those points mean, in any case in numerical deltas it kinda reduces the impact that their choice of Y-Axis scale was intended to make.

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gStein_*|bringing starpipe back|*
March 7, 2010 6:19 PM
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we *MIGHT* be at the bottom of the U.
\"past performance is not an indication of future performance\"
(we can guess based on past recessions, but there's no way to know for sure)

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microcars
March 7, 2010 1:15 PM
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clearly at the bottom?
really?

if you look at the 2001-5 line you could have said that around 15 months.
and you would have be very wrong.

same with 1981-3, looks clearly like the bottom at 5 months.
After all, 1980 did the SAME THING and then shot back up!
oops hold onto your stomachs!

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MadonnaAthos
March 8, 2010 7:44 AM
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It looks like 15-35 months was about the same, so it was almost the bottom.

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ludwigk
March 7, 2010 12:50 PM
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They're percentage employment, so 1 - that is UNemployment. Maybe I'm just too good at reading graphs, but the significance of the plot is that the unemployment is more than double that seen in previous recessions, and lost work would be proportional to the integral of the curve with respect to the X = 1 line, indicating that the impact of this recession is similar to all the other curves combined. Scary.

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Coles_Law
March 7, 2010 1:08 PM
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1 actually seems to indicate employment at the start of the recession, with the decimals indicvating percentage of pre-recession jobs. (Since unemployment is zever 0%, there is a slight difference). That doesn't change the fact your visual integration of the graph reveals an ugly and terrifying fact.

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rupert
March 7, 2010 12:38 PM
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The matmos feeds on negative thoughts!! Do not feed the matmos.
Well, the past does not predict the future. BUT if you look 1980 & 1974-6 recessions, they had a steeper decline (similar to the present situation) and an equally steeper recovery then the 1990 & 2001 declines. Now, I'm no economist, but maybe these steep declines where hastened by a corporate panic and the more rapid decline & recovery cycle are due to these panic firings followed by a quick coming too of the senses? It's a theory, maybe not a good one, but I thought I'd put it out there to quell the fear that seems to feed on itself.

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Mr. S
March 7, 2010 12:41 PM
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I assume the scale refers to fraction of employment from the start of the recession. So .93 means .93x employed where x = total number employed by the start of the recession.

That being said, the scale of the graph has been exaggerated to make things look more severe.

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Skwidspawn
March 7, 2010 11:25 PM
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or move the decimal over two and think of it as %-employed, which would have been a much easier to read way of drawing this graph.

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dwohio
March 7, 2010 12:42 PM
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Interesting. Now...take the next step. Run the timeline from 2001 through present day. Look at the overall trend....Jobs have been dropping off faster than mosquitos on DEET.

And YET, look at where the wealth was create during the same time period. Yes Virginia, it was all created on paper on Wall Street and in Banks. And those same bankers moved a huge chunk of the monetary pie onto their plates during that time.

Also, where did the jobs go? Outsourcing, factories moved to countries with slave labor rates, technology allowing one person to do the work of many. And overall, during the same time period wages in real dollars dropped and raises didn't keep up with the cost of living.

However the profits of major corporations went thru the roof and lots of huge bonuses were paid to CEO's and executives.

The average American was Blued, Screwed and Tattoo'd by the politicians and Big Business during the decade 2000-2009.

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pot_roast
March 8, 2010 12:05 PM
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Ah, yes. Wasn't that whole trend of \"Let's set up shop in India!\" just great? Now it's China. CEO Magazine needs to have a front page article that just says \"Hey asshole, hire someone here in the United States.\"

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smashedpotats
March 7, 2010 12:55 PM
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If the current trend represents a bell curve, the US will return to 100% just before December of 2012 (20 months). *tin foil hat on*

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jesusofcool
March 7, 2010 1:12 PM
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I feel so lucky to be graduating at the lowest point of the bell curve.
Graphs like these make me just want to curl up into a ball in a corner....

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BATMAN!!!hAHA
March 7, 2010 1:19 PM
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agreed :(
Its taken the past 3 months to get one interview..

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Nicole
March 7, 2010 8:16 PM
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I graduated almost a year ago. I've had one interview, and I'm still working the same cruddy part time retail job I had when I graduated.

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bennilynn
March 7, 2010 1:15 PM
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This is a wonderful example of how data can be represented in graph form in such a way as to make it completely misleading.

From the highest point, to the lowest point, it's a difference of .06. Six-hundredths of a what, we don't know, because they didn't see fit to include it properly on the graphs. However, going to the source, we see it's a ratio of the net loss of jobs.

The article states that *unemployment*, on the other hand, has remained steady. So, yes, we've lost more jobs, but that has changed the number of people looking for jobs. It sounds strange, yes, but that's a much better indication of how things are going. If anything, the market is, in a sense, correcting itself. Looking at just the ratio could say that we're losing lots of jobs. It could also say there are lots of jobs disappearing because there's nobody around to take them.

That graph is worthless.

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pythonspam
March 7, 2010 1:31 PM
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If you actually read the article, you know what the graph is displaying.
\"Vertical axis shows the ratio of that month’s nonfarm payrolls to the nonfarm payrolls at the start of recession.\"
So over 6% of the jobs on non-farm payrolls (excluding farming and seasonal type jobs) have been lost since the measurement started in 12/2007.

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bennilynn
March 7, 2010 1:37 PM
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I did actually read the article.

The graph still doesn't mean anything if unemployment has remained the same. Jobs have been lost, but they're not being missed. This is probably because the entire market was so overinflated with junk jobs based on perceived need. When you're basing it off a ratio like this, you do not get any real picture of what's going on, only a picture of how things have changed. Change, in it of itself, is not indicative of economic health one way or the other.

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bennilynn
March 7, 2010 1:16 PM
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Correction: The article states that *unemployment*, on the other hand, has remained steady. So, yes, we've lost more jobs, but that has NOT changed the number of people looking for jobs..

Edit buttons, please?

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CTrees
March 7, 2010 2:07 PM
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Don't forget, the number of discouraged workers has increased. The \"unemployed\" are only those who are seeking a job, and don't have one. When they give up because the economy is so terrible and so many jobs have been lost, they stop being counted.

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Bongo25
March 7, 2010 1:33 PM
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That's because how \"unemployment\" is measured has changed, this has been a well publicized fact for quite a while now. The amount of people actually unemployed is significantly higher than the actual percentage would have you believe.

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BATMAN!!!hAHA
March 7, 2010 2:12 PM
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if they're not looking for a job, then they don't want a job, and are thus not unemployed. Listing unemployment this way is good.

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S
March 7, 2010 11:27 PM
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I am looking for a job.
I want a job.
I cannot draw unemployment.
I am not counted among the unemployed.
I AM unemployed.

Your statement is not valid.

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consumerfan
March 9, 2010 8:30 AM
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Indeed, you are and are counted so provided you are available for work.


From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Who is counted as unemployed?

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.

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dizzy
March 8, 2010 11:07 AM
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I was in your exact scenario until about two weeks ago.

Another question, though: how do they count people working temporary jobs? If you work for a max of two to three days a week, with huge gaps of inactivity and absolutely no guarantee of work from week to week, are you still counted as unemployed or to the powers that be label that part time?

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Brontide
March 8, 2010 11:53 AM
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underemployed or marginally attached workers.

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sixidahos
March 7, 2010 1:21 PM
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i'm a bit disappointed the folks who put this info together manipulated the graph to make their assertion seem more credible. We have enough to worry about. Manipulating a statistic gets press though.

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glorpy
March 7, 2010 2:06 PM
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So... the only things I think we can reliably take away from this graph is that it was twice as severe as the preceding ones since 1974 AND that each successive recession in that period has been longer than the preceding one.

Curiously, the slope of the decline of all these recessions has been fairly consistent, the major difference being the slope of the recovery.

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Jerkamie
March 7, 2010 2:08 PM
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Keep buying overseas cars

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6 replies
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dolemite
March 8, 2010 12:04 PM
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Keep listening to Rush Limbaugh and Hannity.

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harrier666
March 8, 2010 12:55 AM
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Keep buying products made overseas in general, or from companies which have overseas staff or have outsourced any part of their company overseas. (s/overseas/any foreign location)

Oh wait, that leaves nothing!

Meh, hung out with a guy from Detroit, who after driving in my foreign car said, \"Wow.. nothing this good with this gas mileage EVER game out of Detroit\"

Nuff said.

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TouchMyMonkey
March 8, 2010 7:55 AM
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Well, there's cars, and then there's just about everything else. A car costs at least $15,000 (for a small one). A washing machine? Not as much.

Most cars sold in the US market, including Toyotas, are made here because there are advantages to building them here. Toasters, microwave ovens, iPods, and the shirt you're wearing, not so much.

As a result, if you do find an item made in the USA that is not an automobile, it is probably of very good quality, since that's the only way you can compete with China selling any sort of goods that are not automobiles. As for automobiles, it largely depends on the manufacturer. Given that the work done by Americans putting them together are of more or less uniform quality - a reasonable assumption given the large size of this sector of the workforce - the problem with a given brand of American-made car is with engineering, not assembly-line labor. Poor design results in poor quality.

There is a YouTube video out there of East German workers putting together Trabants back in the mid-1980s or so. Quite a lot of work went into building each one, and you can tell that the workers putting them together had to have quite a lot of skill since they were doing nearly all of the work by hand. Yet you wouldn't call the Trabant a quality product. The workers probably did as well as they could given what they had to work with, but skill and craftsmanship can only go so far.

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dryfire
March 7, 2010 2:11 PM
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A larger portion of foreign cars are made on US soil than \"domestic\" ones.

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iheartyukidog
March 7, 2010 4:47 PM
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but wouldn't the profits from overseas cars be going overseas as opposed to domestic cars where the profits are kept here? manufacturing is only one piece of the \"car industry\" puzzle.

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Carmeysays...
March 7, 2010 2:19 PM
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And people wonder why I hate bankers so much. By the way, all of this was preventable. And it was a deliberate act. Back in the late 90's the banks were playing derivatives and got burnt, and Brooksely Bunn, who Clinton had nominated to try and regulate the secret black box derivatives market, was shut up and shut out by Rubin, Greenspan and Sommers. They are basically the sniveling merchants of economic death. Greenspan admitted in 2008 that their belief the derivatives market should NOT be regulated was what led to the crash, but are they regulated yet? NO!

btw, Sommers and Rubin still advise Obama.

What does this all have to do with employment you ask? The derivatives black market trading is what brings down banks (unless they get shamefully bailed out and keep playing with tax money like they are now) and in turn goes the economy, in turn go the housing and labor markets.

It's all right here for anyone to see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/

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Carmeysays...
March 7, 2010 2:22 PM
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OUTLAW OUTSOURCING NOW! Those jobs are NOT coming back!

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wjamny
March 8, 2010 9:26 AM
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I think you mean offshoring, outsourcing can create jobs in other parts of the US.

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cynical_reincarnation
March 8, 2010 8:35 AM
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YES!

Outsourcing hurts workers and is really not that good for companies either in the long run...

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partofme
March 7, 2010 2:26 PM
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Seriously, people. Quit with the complaining about it being misleading. They told you what they were going to graph. They graphed it. There is nothing wrong here. Sure, you can argue that the particular viewpoint the graph comes from does not necessarily reflect the health of the economy. Good luck finding any one thing that does. This is just one more piece of data. When you look at a very complex system, you have to take many snapshots from many different angles. This is one of them. They clearly told you in the article which angle the snapshot was taken from. Take time to educate yourself, and then file it away in your mental picture of the complicated system that is the economy. And quit complaining.

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Lamaku
March 7, 2010 4:47 PM
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The difference between this crisis and the others is that we are in the midst of a destruction of the economy that will never return to the way it was. The only way to save it is by discouraging big business on every level. If it doesn't return to the mom and pop shops of yesteryear we are done as a society. Saving money on purchases is the mindset of the poor. We have to concentrate on making money which means producing products. That means that imported products should be very limited for the decades it will take to rebuild. However, the rich in this country will never allow that so, the U.S. will eventually collapse and what will come after that cannot possibly be good. :(

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ophmarketing
March 7, 2010 5:04 PM
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So in other words...things got REALLY f'ed and out of control up during the previous administration, and over the course of the past year, the curent administration has managed to stop the free-fall and return us to the point where recovery is beginning. You're welcome.

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donovanr
March 7, 2010 5:47 PM
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I want the 30's on this graph.

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S
March 7, 2010 11:37 PM
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I'd very much like to see that also.

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Keep talking...I'm listening
March 7, 2010 6:11 PM
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Graphs like these need sound effects. I suggest a slide whistle.

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The_Red_Monkey
March 7, 2010 7:22 PM
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History has demonstrated that a jobless economic recovery is standard practice at this point. THese graphs are meaningless without showing you who is unemployed. The unemployed are mostly uneducated and unskilled workers. Job recovery is happening in some areas, but not at the McDonald's level.

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ElizabethD
March 7, 2010 9:29 PM
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I know this is only anecdotal, but I know quite a few people in their 50s and early 60s who had professional/managerial careers and good educations, and are now unemployed. My husband went through it for two years. We Boomers are terrified about the future, tbh.

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flyingember
March 7, 2010 7:34 PM
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538 has a better anysis of the jobs situation. It's manufacturing and jobs for non-HS grads with the most problems coming back. And even within this, manufuring today is still a higher amount than it was in 2000 and much more than in 1960. We're just more productive.

So the jobs we need are in areas for the un-educated. And for people working with homes. Until the banks sell their back log of foreclosed houses we won't need as many

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Ragman
March 7, 2010 8:57 PM
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It ain't pretty in the technology sector, either. Engineering grads are having a hard time finding work as well.

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mnicolson
March 7, 2010 9:10 PM
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Look like the NYT fired the graphic designer

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kmcolo
March 7, 2010 9:14 PM
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Looks as though the graph shows what many of us knew. The Bush years pretty much sucked in terms of employment. The house of cards that was built for the growth in 2006 could not even stay together long enough for the 2008 elections.

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ElizabethD
March 7, 2010 9:27 PM
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Bracing for possible layoff this week or next... after more than 3 decades at same co. So freakin scared.....

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El_Fez
March 7, 2010 11:19 PM
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You have my sympathies - eight months out of a job here and I cant even get ONE bloody stupid call returned for the hundreds of resumes I send out. Hell, even the minimal skill required manual labor jobs and McJobs don't return my calls.

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S
March 7, 2010 11:45 PM
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You're not the only one. I'm guessing they see me as \"overqualified\" when they look at the list of my previous jobs. Maybe they think that as soon as the economy starts to recover, I'll jump ship for a better job.

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Torchwood
March 8, 2010 4:16 AM
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There are so many things wrong at the moment. I think I will become depressed now.

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moore850
March 8, 2010 8:38 AM
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If that blue line started in 2007, then obama came into office at the bottom of that blue curve (2009), right?

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dolemite
March 8, 2010 8:57 AM
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Wow, so according to that...we'd probably have 40-60 months before employment got back up to the level of the 1981 recession, if it does.

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lilbbybstrd
March 8, 2010 10:33 AM
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Welcome to HOPE AND CHANGE. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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almightytora
March 8, 2010 12:21 PM
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It says on the NY Times site:

\"Horizontal axis shows months. Vertical axis shows the ratio of that month’s nonfarm payrolls to the nonfarm payrolls at the start of recession.\"

Whatever that means...

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Edjamacator
March 8, 2010 1:48 PM
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Is this the HOPE and CHANGE some of you were praying for back in 11/2008?

Good job, Obama. I thought your laughably named stimulus package was supposed to PREVENT this from happening.

Yet more proof that Obama supporters have ruined the country for us all. Next time vote with your brain, not the little tingle that went up your leg when you heard your Messiah speak.

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kabamm
March 30, 2010 3:07 PM
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Two years too late. This is what GWB left us. Obama gets to clean up the mess. Next time try reading the article, genius.

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frakincaprica
March 14, 2010 12:47 AM
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This graph has nothing to do with explaining why it is taking longer and longer to replace jobs. But it's obvious. The methods of the federal reserve to tie rate controls very closely to the financial sector.

The financial sector doesn't create jobs. So in each recession as banks have leaned more and more to financial magic for generating money, they don't loan to businesses who actually create jobs.

It's particularly bad now as they've all but decided to loan no money to any small business for any reason. So despite being able to borrow at 0.00-0.25% and loan long, they still won't loan for those creating jobs.

\"The chart above shows job losses in this recession compared to other recent ones; the blue line represents the current downturn. Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has had a net loss of about 6.1 percent of its nonfarm payroll jobs.\"

I dispute this. Show the BLS data. The economy lost large %s of nonfarm payroll jobs in all the 70s recessions, and 82-83 in particular.

Now, that's not to say this recession is not severe. Of course it is. It's a debt led recession. Just like 1929 was. We've only had 2 debt led recessions and they are the hardest to fix because debt load prevents financial movement that can aid recovery.

Aside from the fact that the graph is wrong.

In December 2007 nonfarm employment payroll was 138.495 million (that's total nonfarm workers employed, which is what the graph claims it is measuring in comparison to the first month of the recession, December 2007) last month (February 2010) it was 128.079. that's 92.5% or a 7.5% decrease...

At least *try* to get it right.

Looky, sources.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01042008.pdf

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_03052010.pdf

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