“The punch line is that you don’t have to lose your job to get pinched in a recession,” said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “Understandably we focus on layoffs and job losses, but most people keep their jobs in a recession. People who held their jobs are losing ground both in terms of hours and hourly wages.”

The number of people on non-farm payrolls was lower in April than six months earlier. Over the last half-century, every time employment has dipped in such fashion, the economy has proved to be either in a recession or just emerging from one.

A private research organization, the National Bureau of Economic Research, determines whether a downturn qualifies as a recession, which it defines as a “significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months.”

Several economists predicted the organization would eventually conclude that the nation entered a recession late last year or early this year, though the Commerce Department has reported overall economic activity has remained slightly positive.

“It’s kind of tough when you’ve got to tell your family that a lot of things are going to change and the things we’re used to are basically going to stop,” said Howard Dempsey, a worker at a Freightliner truck factory in Cleveland, N.C., who recently learned that he would lose his job next month, along with 1,500 other people  nearly half the work force.

“It’s hard to understand how all this happened so fast, when one day we’re building 200 trucks a day and the next day we’re down to 100,” he said.

Mr. Dempsey has worked at the plant for almost a decade and is paid $22.30 an hour, plus health insurance and other benefits. Those wages allowed him to buy a house, and plan for college for his two teenage daughters, both well-accustomed to shopping as a pastime.