Worst Months of Job Losses (1939-present)

[thegreatgate]

Released Friday, 12/6/2008, November's job losses were the sixth largest monthly decline on record, but as a percentage of the workforce, actually only the 41st worst month. The data from the chart is since 1939, or 69 years ago or 758 months ago. So the month scored 717th out of 758 reports. Still terrible, but not so bad, right? What do you think?

This morning's employment report showed that during the month of November the US economy lost 533K jobs which was the sixth largest monthly decline on record. However, just as a move of 100 points in the Dow was a much bigger move when the Dow was at 1,000 than it is now that we are at 8,000, a decline of 500K jobs when the workforce consists of 140 million workers is not nearly as significant as a decline of 500K jobs when the workforce consists of 40 million workers as it did in 1945. Today's jobs report was certainly nothing to get excited about, but it also wasn't the Armageddon scenario that some are making it out to be. Below we list the 41 worst employment reports since 1939.
Bespoke Investment Group: 41st Worst Monthly Jobs Report On Record...Yes 41st

[Skydaemon]

Saw an interview that said numbers like this point to around -8% gdp growth being posted for the quarter which is double the current estimate.

The single month numbers mean less than the trend and the total pain, plus in this context, this feeds directly back into the broken mortgage market.