This excellent graph from Calculated Risk shows the decline (and recovery) in jobs as a percentage of the work force, over the last eleven U.S. recessions (from 1948 on). Click on graph for a larger view.
It's a scary graph, in that it shows the current recession clearly being the worst, for both the amount and duration of unemployment, in post-War history. On the other hand, it does seem to show that unemployment has leveled off and is turning the corner (ever so slowly). If past trends are any indication, we're now in for twenty-some months of employment gains.
Still, it doesn't feel like the recession is ending. But I guess at the very bottom, it never does.
