Percent of Permanent Job Losses at Highest in Over 30 Years

The Atlanta Fed’s macroblog has compiled a roundup of evidence showing that the economy is in a jobless recovery. It shows that jobs are scarce, that a higher than average number of jobs have been lost in small businesses (which is a bad sign), and that many workers have been forced into part time status.

However, the data point that really jumps out is this one — the dominant reason for unemployment in the current economy is permanent separation. Permanent separation is when a job is cut and it’s never coming back…versus temporary layoffs, quitting, and other types of job losses.

It’s a unique point because the percent of permanent job losses haven’t been this high in over 30 years, and as the article goes on to say, “Never, in the six recessions preceding the latest one, did permanent separations account for more than 45 percent of the unemployed. The current percentage stands at 56 percent as of September and appears to be still climbing.”

The post came to our attention via CalculatedRisk which, in looking at the finding commented, “So far the current recovery is even worse than “jobless”; it is a “job-loss” recovery.”

This data provides more proof that the economy isn’t really recovering. It’s important to look at the numbers behind the headline statistics to understand how this depression really is different from other, previous times of economic turmoil. The post from CalculatedRisk highlights permanent separations and macroblog has more details about a variety of joblessness stats.