Historical Employment Data
How Many People are Actually Employed?
By Tim McMahon, editor
In this chart we can see the employment figures from 1939 through the present with recessions shaded. As you would expect, recessions correspond pretty well to the declines in employment (i.e. increased Unemployment). There are periods however that are classified as official recessions where the number of people that are employed has not fallen significantly. But we can see that the recent employment drop was one of the steepest declines since 1939. This represents the actual number (unadjusted) of Non-farm jobs in the United States as tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics. Series CEU 0000000001
To Zoom in on the data since 2000 go to Current Employment Data.
In many ways the actual employment data presents a much more reliable way of looking at jobs than the unemployment rate. From this chart you can see the number of jobs that are filled at any given time and thus the number of people that are actually employed. If the employment numbers are falling that is bad and usually is correlated to a recession. If the number of jobs increases that is good and generally means the economy is picking up. The number of jobs bottomed in January 2010 at 127.3 Million then rose to 131.4 Million in November 2010 and then lost 3 million and got back down to 128.18 Million in January of 2011. In June of 2011 we topped that number by reaching 132.08 Million but the number of jobs has since fallen but in In October 2011 returned to 132.572 Million .
One obvious reason for the massive increase in jobs since 1939 is the increase in the population another is the exodus from farms to non-farm labor. Another reason is due to the increasing number of women entering the workplace.
For more Information See:
Current Unemployment Rate Chart
The Misery index measures inflation plus unemployment and is a good measure of the discomfort of the country’s population.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
