Is the Recession Over?

 

More than a million residential construction jobs have been lost since industry employment peaked in February 2006. Over the last 12 months, almost half of million of the nearly 6 million jobs lost overall were in residential construction.
Courtesy of Sprott-Shaw Community College

A number of commentators have been arguing recently that the current recession is over or that it is rapidly drawing to an end. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has joined the chorus.

There is definitely improvement in the economy — and even in housing. However, the improvement is surfacing in an extraordinarily low level of activity.

Although improvement is certainly better than the alternative, it still leaves us with a long struggle ahead — and the prospect of backsliding into trouble again still exists.

Some of this improvement is actually a slowing in the deterioration of some economic measures — a necessary step to recovery, but still painful nonetheless.

A prime example is the August employment report. Non-farm payroll employment fell by 216,000, the smallest decline in a year and less than a third of the January decline. Still, nearly 7 million jobs have disappeared from the economy since employment peaked in December 2007.

Courtesy of NAHB