Job Market Recovery – Great Recession vs Great Depression

( By Bill McBride) – The causes of the Great Recession were similar to the Great Depression – as opposed to most post war recessions that were caused by Fed tightening to slow inflation – and I’m frequently asked if we could compare the percent job losses during the two periods. Unfortunately there is very little data for the Great Depression.

Back in February I posted a graph based on some rough annual data.

In April, Treasury released a slide deck titled Financial Crisis Response In Charts. One of the charts shows the percentage jobs lost in the current recession compared to the Great Depression.

Here is that graph (I’ve added a couple of dots to update the current recession)…

via Calculated Risk: Percent Job Losses: Great Recession and Great Depression.