I Think We’re Alone Now, as made famous by Tiffany.
Overkill, as made famous by Men At Work.
Working in the Coal Mine, as made famous a second time by Devo.
Tarzan Boy, as made famous by Baltimora.
Now don’t you wish you’d heard covers of these songs performed by animatronic animals?
(This is an update to my November post about US job losses. For more information about where I got my data, please see that post.)
The US job market is definitely still sliding. Back in December I crunched some numbers to see how bad the job losses were as a percentage of the total number of jobs. Here’s what it looks like now that we have two more months of bad news.
Here are the job gains and losses since 1960.
We’ve now had three months whose drop is nearly that of the single largest drop in December 1974, as is shown on this table of the top ten greatest monthly losses.
| Year | Month | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Dec | -602,000 |
| 2009 | Jan | -598,000 |
| 2008 | Nov | -597,000 |
| 2008 | Dec | -577,000 |
| 1980 | May | -431,000 |
| 1970 | Oct | -430,000 |
| 2008 | Oct | -380,000 |
| 1975 | Feb | -378,000 |
| 1974 | Nov | -368,000 |
| 1975 | Jan | -360,000 |
September 2008 isn’t on the list after its preliminary numbers were revised. Now October 2008 is on it instead, and November 2008’s non-preliminary numbers are worse than before.
Now let’s look at job loss as a percentage of the jobs that could be lost. That is, take the number of jobs lost in a given month and divide that number by the jobs you started out with in the previous month.
As before, the shape of the graph is about the same, but the fluctuations are now larger earlier in time. Here’s the top ten worst months by percentage of jobs lost.
| Year | Month | Difference | % Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Dec | -602,000 | -0.77% |
| 1960 | May | -340,000 | -0.62% |
| 1970 | Oct | -430,000 | -0.61% |
| 1975 | Feb | -378,000 | -0.49% |
| 1980 | May | -431,000 | -0.47% |
| 1974 | Nov | -368,000 | -0.47% |
| 1975 | Jan | -360,000 | -0.46% |
| 2009 | Jan | -598,000 | -0.44% |
| 2008 | Nov | -597,000 | -0.44% |
| 2008 | Dec | -577,000 | -0.43% |
The bottom of our list is filling up with recent months.
These are still all one-month drops, and the data shows a lot of single-month drops that are surrounded by gains. How does 2008-2009 compare to other runs of job losses? Between 1960 and now there have been seven times that we’ve lost jobs for four or more months in a row.
| Period | Months | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 2008 – Jan 2009 | 13 | -3,498,000 |
| Aug 1981 – Dec 1982 | 17 | -2,838,000 |
| Mar 2001 – May 2002 | 15 | -2,202,000 |
| Nov 1974 – Apr 1975 | 6 | -2,164,000 |
| Jul 1990 – May 1991 | 11 | -1,621,000 |
| May 1960 – Feb 1961 | 10 | -1,256,000 |
| Apr 1980 – Jul 1980 | 4 | -1,159,000 |
What a difference two months makes. Through November, we hadn’t lost as many jobs since January 2008 as we had from November 1974 to April 1975. Now we’ve lost far more than that. On sheer number of jobs alone, we’re in our worst run since 1960. What about job losses as a percentage of the number of jobs that existed before the losses?
| Period | Months | Difference | % Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1981 – Dec 1982 | 17 | -2,838,000 | -3.10% |
| Nov 1974 – Apr 1975 | 6 | -2,164,000 | -2.75% |
| Jan 2008 – Jan 2009 | 13 | -3,498,000 | -2.53% |
| May 1960 – Feb 1961 | 10 | -1,256,000 | -2.29% |
| Mar 2001 – May 2002 | 15 | -2,202,000 | -1.66% |
| Jul 1990 – May 1991 | 11 | -1,621,000 | -1.48% |
| Apr 1980 – Jul 1980 | 4 | -1,159,000 | -1.27% |
I’d still rate the 1974-1975 recession worse, based on this list and the fact that the job losses there were sustained over a mere 6 months. But the situation’s bad, and not getting any better. Two months ago I said, “While we’ve experienced worse recessions, given another four or five months of this and we could move into the top spot across the board.” It may not take four months at the rate we’re going.
I’ve had the raw video of Eli reviewing “Super Mario Galaxy” sitting on my hard drive for forever, so I decided it was time to do something about it.
I didn’t used to obsess about productivity. Friends were welcome to get all wrapped up in methodologies for being more productive; I was getting things done just fine, thanks. I had an excellent memory, and seldom forgot to do what needed to be done.
Then I started getting older. I’d leave small tasks lying around, only remembering them when I re-found them or they blew up loudly in the corner.
Even that wasn’t enough to push me over the edge. Sure, I signed up for Remember the Milk, but I put tasks in it like an old man erratically handing out coins to his grandchildren. Otherwise I went on as I had before, mainly relying on memory and the kindness of others.
But then came the iPhone. Oh, goodness, what a difference having a computer in your pants can make. I started using Remember the Milk — really using it, instead of dabbling in it. I found how to create saved smart searches, a crazy feature that only crazy people really need. Then I realized I also wanted to note down random web pages that I wanted to look at later, as well as snippets of blog posts and random thoughts and, oh, hell, why not sign up for Evernote to remember all of this for me?
Wait: what if I’m driving and a particularly clever thought zips its way through my brain? I can’t type and drive at the same time? But I can talk and drive, as Misty will tell you while rolling her eyes. So I signed up for reQall, which has an iPhone app to transcribe voice to text.
I haven’t yet set up 43 folders to dump stuff into, and Lifehacker isn’t in my Google Reader subscriptions. But if I graph my use of productivity tools as a function of time, I should reach the productivity singularity in early 2010, at which point I will be so productive that I have no time to do anything.
The Golden Gate Bridge was gusty.
Fisherman’s Wharf was fishy.
Lombard Street was twisty.
Coit Tower was phallic-y.