3 Critical Unemployment Charts - February 2011

As I have commented previously, as in the October 6, 2009 post, in my opinion the official methodologies used to measure the various job loss and unemployment statistics do not provide an accurate depiction; they serve to understate the severity of unemployment.

However, even if one chooses to look at the official statistics, the following charts provide an interesting (and disconcerting) long-term perspective of certain aspects of the officially-stated  unemployment situation.

The first two charts are from the St. Louis Fed site.  Here is the Median Duration of Unemployment:

(click on charts to enlarge images)(charts updated as of 2-4-11)



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Here is the chart for Unemployed 27 Weeks and Over:



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Lastly, a chart from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve site.  This shows the employment situation vs. that of previous recessions (as characterized by severity):



As depicted by these charts, our unemployment problem is severe.  Unfortunately, there do not appear to be any “easy” solutions.

In July 2009 I wrote a series of five blog posts titled “Why Aren’t Companies Hiring?”, which discusses various aspects of the topic, many of which lack recognition.

A Special Note concerning our economic situation is found here
SPX at 1310.87 as this post is written