Bloomberg has an interactive graphic showing that more jobs were lost during the recession than was previously thought. Every month the government releases unemployment numbers. In those numbers are a estimate of the number of jobs created and number of jobs lost. This is called the Birth/Death model. The Birth/Death model for all of 2009, with the exception of January’s numbers, showed jobs being created even during the middle of a recession. The January unemployment report, which will be released on Friday at 7:30 EST, will contain revisions to the Birth/Death model. This revision is not unexpected since it happens every year. For the past six months, the U.S. government has been saying that they will have to revise the numbers with 824,000 jobs being lost.
The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape during the recession than known at the time.
