The evolution of recession - Job Changes

Horizontal axis shows months. Vertical axis shows the ratio of that month’s nonfarm payrolls to the nonfarm payrolls at the start of recession. Note: Because employment is a lagging indicator, the dates for these employment trends are not exactly synchronized with National Bureau of Economic Research’s official business cycle dates.The economy added 162,000 jobs in March, the biggest monthly net gain in three years.

The chart above shows job changes in this recession compared to recent ones, with the blue line representing the current downturn. The line has ticked upward, but still has a long way to go before the job market fully recovers to its pre-recession level. Since the downturn began in December 2007, the economy has shed about 5.9 percent of its nonfarm payroll jobs.
The unemployment rate (measured by a different government survey, and based on how many people are without jobs but are looking for work) stayed steady at 9.7 percent in March. The divergence between the payroll growth and the flat unemployment rate is partly because more people are joining (or rejoining) the labor force and looking for jobs.

Hire or fire?

Global employment outlook doesn`t look so nice in the last 2 years.But,where employers are most optimistic, and pessimistic?

IN 27 out of 36 countries surveyed by Manpower, an employment-services firm, more companies said they expected to add jobs in the three months to the end of June than said they reckoned on reducing their workforce. The difference between the proportion of hirers and firers was highest in Brazil and India. Throughout Asia companies have become more optimistic about hiring than they were a year ago, most dramatically in Singapore but only slightly in Japan.

Things look less rosy in Europe. In several countries,

including Spain and Ireland, more companies expect

 to see cuts to their workforce than expect it to grow.

Of the four countries where the outlook has darkened,

three are in Europe.