Comparisons to prior recessions should factor in these job loss data too

The fundamentals don't always tell you where the market will go near-term. But they do give you perspective on the bigger picture (and I'll post some big-picture charts here a bit later today). Currently we have the White House pointing to the stock market as evidence of economic victories; dodging questions about support for the U.S. dollar; hosting a jobs summit and "leaking" (via Robert Gibbs, as noted in Phil Davis' SeekingAlpha article I tweeted about yesterday, see UBTNB3 blog for that) that the jobs number would be bad, then yesterday's surprise in the opposite that merely 11,000 jobs were lost (due to more hiring of temporary workers). How does the employment picture really look? Well of course people are pointing out that real unemployment may be 17% when you count those who stopped looking or took underemployment, etc. And now "Chart of the Day" stopes forward to share a comparison of job losses to those in previous recessions. So let's have a look at what they're saying:

Chart of the Day - Job losses are over triple the average trough

December 4, 2009

Today, the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls (jobs) decreased by 11,000 in November -- the smallest decline since the recession began at the close of 2007. 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 triple as much as what occurs at the lows of the average recession/job loss cycle.

Quote of the Day
"Confidence grows at the rate a coconut tree grows. It falls at the rate a coconut falls." - Montek Ahluwalia

Events of the Day
December 10, 2009 - Nobel Prizes awarded (announced in October)
December 11, 2009 - Hanukkah (1st day)

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