The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever (Another View)

Henry Blodget
Business Insider
Apr. 05, 2010

Here's another view of what we've been calling the "Scariest Jobs Chart Ever." It's from Calculated Risk, and it shows the percent of job losses since the peak for all the post-war recessions.

In this version of the chart, the job losses are aligned at the month of peak job loss. (In the previous versions we've shown, the job losses are aligned by the month in which the recession started).

Two things to notice here:

First, again, this (red line) is by far the worst job loss since the Great Depression. And we're still bumping along the bottom.
Second, the two most recent recessions, 1990 (black line) and 2001 (burnt sienna line), both saw jobless recoveries (it took years for the jobs to come back).

If the recovery from our current recession is similar to the earlier recessions, we will see a sharp snap-back. If the recovery is similar to the two most recent recessions, however, recovering all those lost jobs is going to take several years.