16 January 2010

The Recession in pictures

Via John Gushue who got it from Business Insider who got it from Calculated Risk, a chart comparing job loss as a share of peak employment in every American recession since the end of the Second World War.

us job losses

Yes Virginia, this is still the worst recession bar none. And as John Gushue points out in different words, those in the province who deal with the United States marketplace have got to be hurting.

There is more detail at Calculated Risk on this chart which is derived from the most recent employment numbers coming from the US federal government.

When you are finished digesting that bit of information take a look at this related chart which shows the percentage of American workers who have been out of a job for 27 weeks or more.  More people are out of work and they’ve been out of work longer than  in any previous recession.

UnemployedOver26Weeks

Again you’ll find more on this at CR.

Three things to take away from all this:

1.  Two days left: If you haven’t voted for John Gushue over at the NL Blogroll yet, go do it now.  No fooling around.  You can come back in a minute when you’ve finished voting AND leaving a comment.  That gets him three votes in total.  Oh yes and tell your friends. And make sure you vote tomorrow too for John – you can do that under the rules of this contest. You already click out to John more than any other link at SRBP so the least you can do is vote for him.

2. The American recession is having an effect on this province and will continue to do so.  Anyone who tells you otherwise deserves a sharp jab to the throat to get them to stop fibbing.

3.  Stand by for some additional work along these lines on the local economy.  What’s actually been going on is more than a little at odds with what you’ve been told elsewhere.

-srbp-