Nonfarm Payrolls (% change from recession start)

Chart of the Day

Today, the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls (jobs) decreased by 216,000 in August. Today's chart puts that decline into perspective by comparing job losses during the current economic recession (solid red line) to that of the last recession (dashed gold line) and the average recession from 1950-2006 (dashed blue line). As today's chart illustrates, the current job market has suffered losses that are more than six times as much as average (20 months after the beginning of a recession). In fact, if this were an average recession/job loss cycle, the number of jobs would have begun to increase five months ago.