NFP Chartfest
By Barry Ritholtz - October 9th, 2010, 12:00PM
One of the more fascinating things about the monthly Employment report is the slew of charts it generates.
No one site or media outlet has a monopoly on interesting visual depictions of the employment situation. We have an embarrassment of riches, a virtual orgy of chart porn, and I could have included dozens more.
There are my top 10 favorites; as always, click to max out the image:
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Unemployment by County
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Comparing Post WW2 Recession Job Losses
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BLS Employment Revisions
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Changes in Temporary Employment
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Jobless Recoveries: 1980 – Present
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Recession Recoveries: 1980 – Present
Economix
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US Unemployment Rate
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Recession Comparisons (1954, 2001, 2009)
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ADP vs BLS Employment Data
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Part Time for Economic Reasons
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Did I miss anything particularly interesting? Let me know in comments . . .
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October 9th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
What all that tells me is that 8% U-3(at the least) is/will become the new normal. We’ve overcooked the goose big time.
October 9th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
@Barry:
You forgot a chart of how many charts you’ve used over time.
@Calvin:
The “new” normal is hardly new. We’ve been seeing the disastrous consequences of Reaganomics since 1990. We were fortunate to have a technological revolution from 1992-2000 that temporarily ameliorated the worst symptoms of the failure of Reaganomics. Then we had a “lost decade” in the 2000s where the GOP used credit as a narcotic to mask the fact that our economy relied upon an unsustainable pattern of consumption.
The main difference between now and then is that we have a President in Barack Obama who has the courage to work to build a new foundation for the American economy based on manufacturing. No nation can ever be anything but a slave nation when it relies on consumption and easily-outsourced white-collar jobs for its prosperity.
October 9th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
How do you say who’s winning in Chinese? Or who’s tieing the score. So someday there will be a better world without capitalist pigs in it?
October 9th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
I have chart envy. Seriously, can anybody recommend a user-friendly math program–preferably free–that will compose graphs from formulae as well as the old-fashioned fill-in-the blank method?
@ franklin411: I think you have Obama’s class allegiance all wrong. Rhetoric aside, he is as much a tool of big capital as was Reagan; just a differently nuanced tool. (There is a revolving-door plan in our “bipartisan” political regime to complement the revolving-door plan between business and government generically.) If I am correct, the only way that you’ll have your turn-the-clock-back (to a manufacturing America) wish come true is if big capital wants this–and I see no evidence of this. Rather, the Dems pursue the same old (ever-since-Reagan) corporate globalist agenda as the Repubs; a.k.a. the “race to the bottom,” a.k.a. the “Mexicanization of the USA.”
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BR: Excel or any of the free variants — Sun’s Open Office or the Google Doc spreadsheet.
October 9th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
You won’t see manufacturing come back to the US until gas is at $10/gallon – when it becomes cheaper to make it here than transport it from halfway around the world. Franklin needs to get out more – too much cheap idle labor worldwide to compete against in a shrinking manufacturing sector (due to automation). And doesn’t Franklin teach? His job can easily be outsourced to an internet classroom. I can’t tell that he’s produced anything except political barbs. Yeah that’ll pay the rent.
October 9th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Why does everyone hate farmers? It’s always the non FARM payroll. When will we get farm payrolls? Chicken gotta get fed and someone needs to cut the rhubarb!
The first chart was somewhat telling. The low unemloyment swath on the map is the food belt.
October 9th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Well brianinla, gas doesn’t really need to be $10 a gallon. What are most commodities priced in? What is oil priced in? What is happening to the dollar now? If the Chinese won’t allow the yuan to rise, having the dollar drop is the next best thing isn’t it? Because once commodities go through the roof, and oil rises a bit, and the dollar is incredibly weak, we have yuan adjustment by circumstance.
Of course someone out there could grow a pair and just label them currency manipulators and slap a tariff on everything. Or people in this country could all stop buying cheap Chinese crap at Walmart (oh that makes me laugh!). And if they stop buying Treasuries? Well, frankly, I agree with those that say go ahead. It would be the best thing that they could do for us.
I honestly think the endgame of this isn’t going to be very pretty, and as someone who has actually had dealings with, and been to, China, I honestly don’t think they will be the powerhouse most people think. The costs aren’t that cheap anymore, and if this current economic downturn lasts even a couple of more years they’ll be the Japan of the new millennium. And maybe that’s what the business agenda is, you know? Remember all that talk of Japan? Poof, lost decade. If that happens to China, it will be a lost century.
October 9th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
High gas prices would have virtually no effect on imports from China. The per-item trans-Pacific shipping cost for fuel of small items like a pair of sneakers in a container ship is thousandths of a penny. Almost the entire cost is capital cost. Relatively zero ships from Asia to the US by air.
October 9th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
China? There’s a lot more places to go downstream than manufacturing in China. Tens of millions of people in the rest of Asia and Africa that will work for dollars a day – in towns where 80% of the population live without running water to their houses. All that’s needed is a stable electrical grid and a way to get the goods to the docks. Devaluing the dollar against the yuan won’t bring manufacturing back here.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Franklin,
Barack stated that Reagan was his political hero, the “stimulus” was 40% tax cut. In fact, Obama is far to the right of Reagan on economic, social and foreign policy, take the political blinders off.
“The main difference between now and then is that we have a President in Barack Obama”
October 10th, 2010 at 12:59 am
So much great data…thanks for the compilation, BR! I really like the WSJ graph that breaks out the Private/Govt/Manufacturing sector contributions to job growth after recession endpoints. The trend is clear. In recessions prior to 1991, the Private sector carried huge weight in adding jobs. In recessions since, the Private sector carries negative weight. I see two options: 1) go sideways for a long time 2) create lots of government jobs. There are pros and cons to each. I think American salaries will need to shrink somewhat whether jobs come via Private or Govt.
@ Ilya – good one…LOL
October 10th, 2010 at 6:57 am
[...] A scad of charts on non-farm payrolls. (Big Picture) [...]
October 10th, 2010 at 8:53 am
Look at all the new jobs and growth industry going on:
http://cryptogon.com/?p=18152#comments
October 11th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
[...] on Calculated Risk and NFB Chartfest for more charts on unemployment and the [...]