Job Losses and Unemployment
The number of jobs in the state recovered more slowly after the 2001 recession than after most previous recessions since World War II and more slowly than in the United States as a whole. Manufacturing, crucial to Pennsylvania’s economic fortunes, has been especially hard-hit.
- In July 2004 Pennsylvania had 81,300 (1.4 percent) fewer jobs than it had when the recession started. The entire United States had 0.9 percent fewer jobs than when the recession started.
- Pennsylvania has gained jobs only in the four months March through June 2004, losing jobs in July, while the nation has gained them every month since September 2003.
- The state’s 1.6 percent job loss from calendar year 2000 through calendar year 2003 was the fourth worst of any comparable period since World War II. Only in the periods following the 1957-58 recession (when the state lost 3.4 percent of its jobs between the pre-recession jobs peak and the second year after the end of the recession), the “double-dip” recessions of 1980-82 (3.1 percent loss), and the 1953-54 recession (2.1 percent loss) did Pennsylvania have larger percentage job losses than it had from 2000-2003. By the second year after the end of five of the 10 recessions since World War II, the state had gained jobs since its pre-recession or early-recession peak.
- The number of jobs has dropped more dramatically compared to the number of people who want jobs, measured by the change in Pennsylvania’s working-age population. This population grew by an estimated 1.7 percent since March 2001. In July 2004 Pennsylvania was 181,000 jobs short of the number of jobs needed to keep pace with the expansion of the working-age population since March 2001.
- Manufacturing job loss has been especially severe. As of July 2004 Pennsylvania had 151,600 fewer manufacturing jobs than at the start of the recession, a 17.9 percent loss. In contrast, the nation as a whole lost 14.9 percent of its manufacturing jobs during this time and the state lost only 7.7 percent of its manufacturing jobs during a comparable time period after the recession of the early 1990s.
- Although the state’s unemployment rate has been lower since March 2001 than during or after the last two recessions, it was still 5.3 percent in July of this year, 0.1 percentage points higher than at the end of the 2001 recession and 1.3 percentage points higher than at the beginning of the recession. By 32 months after the end of each of the last two recessions the unemployment rate was at or below its level at the end of the
More about about the impact of the late recession and recovery on the Pennsylvania labor market can be found on pages 8-17 of the full State of Working Pennsylvania 2004.
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