Visualizing Job Losses and Gains in U.S.

It’s a depressing subject, but this still a lovely piece of data visualization work from Slate showing U.S. job losses over the last two years by region. [Click here to see it in its full interactive glory - Ed.]

Comments

[Anthony B:]

holy shit. Sure loaded for me.

Looks like a recovery! hahaha

Apr 16 03:43 PM

[Vuke:]

The graphic is magnificently done. A startling image of reality.

Cetin is correct. It's possible, should the Fed push enough, to have a "recovery" as measured by GDP with even 100% unemployment.

Ah, the wonders of modern economics. At last, something for nothing, even better than the alchemists of old who had to buy their lead to turn to gold. Mind you, with all the printing required to achieve this "recovery" the price of goods may rise somewhat.

Apr 16 03:53 PM

[Chris B:]

It's interesting that the New Orleans, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas regions feature the largest concentrations of job growth in the country.

It makes one wonder if we are about to see a new wave of homesteaders from Detroit, Orlando, LA, and Boston moving to places like Oklahoma City, Baton Rouge, and Austin.

Perhaps the lack of a property bubble plus right-to-work laws have ensured the success of these regions.

Apr 16 03:55 PM

[Rohan C. Pease:]

Interesting visualization, I tend to look more at visuals and charts to see trends. Thanks for the post.

Severe unemployment can drastically alter fundamental analysis and valuation. However I would expect unemployment to peak at around 10% by mid '10, and that has clearly been priced into the market.

Major banks such as GS, JPM, WFC have used an assumed 10% unemployment as metric for their forecast of 2010. This is approx 1.8% higher then FED's expectation of unemployment to top out at 8.2%.

Note - Unemployment is 2x the National Avg. for 23-35 yr workers

Apr 16 04:01 PM

[cabanker:]

Great visual. Hard to imagine we are going to have any kind of sustained rally in housing prices with unemployment continuing to climb month after month. I'm seeing "lots" of for sale signs in the bay area, and very few "sold".
The Banks may be able to offset the continued loan loss provisions with NIM, so that sector should begin to settle (stock prices have already reflected that fact).
The big question is where do we go from here in sectors ex-financials? Is the new normal 10%+ unemployment?

Apr 16 04:26 PM

[wisurvey:]

5% unemployment is basically full employment. In other words, all able bodied people that want to work are basically working. 10% unemployment is the new 'normal'. Some able bodied people looking for work.

Apr 16 05:00 PM

[Andy Harless:]

This is cool. I hadn't realized how much regional variation there has been in this recession. If you look at February 2009, it looks like the region between the Mississippi and the Rockies is not experiencing a recession. The 12-month comparison is probably a bit misleading, though. I imagine a lot of oil patch jobs were created between February and July of 2008, and I bet the region has lost a lot of jobs subsequently. I expect that by July 2009 almost the whole country will be red.

Apr 16 07:48 PM

[donzelion:]

ChrisB - while local politicians love to assert their pro-business agendas have caused job growth, the reality is a bit more simple than that: you send 5 defense contracts worth $250 million to California and Massachusetts, and no one will see much change, but you do that to suburbs in Kansas, Wyoming, Texas, and Oklahoma, and you'll see relatively large job growth (it only takes a few hundred high-skilled, high-paying jobs to create several thousand new posts in banks, construction, etc.)

Paul - I would expect that waves of retirements will reduce unemployment more than any recovery this time around. Some folks are trying to defer retirement to rebuild their savings - others don't have much choice - but either way, you'll soon have tens of millions of people in the "not unemployed but not holding a job" category that current statistics miss.

Apr 18 05:08 AM