Employment Growth, Recession and Comparison to 08: Some Thoughts

• Will 2023 be the next ‘Great Recession’?

  • The BLS recently published the following graph showing cumulative job growth and losses since 1990. What’s striking to is that while the growth has been a very consistent 21-24 million in each expansion, aside from the 2007 (the early ‘aughts’), losses have grown in each of the past five recessions.

  • What was supposed to be ’once in a lifetime’ economic contractions in 2008-2009 and 2020 seem to be occurring with greater frequency. Just as ‘once in a century’ storms appear to be happening every decade instead, financial stresses are building quicker and striking deeper.

  • The US is not alone in this situation, as the financial headwinds likely to drive the next recession – high inflation, high-interest rates, stalling productivity- are felt worldwide.

• How does our current position compare to 2008?

  • The current economy is in a much better position than in 2008:

    • The US has created 45+ million jobs over the past two expansions

    • Personal debt levels are much lower overall and standing debt was issued at much lower rates.

    • Firms have been almost proactive in identifying and planning for the next recession.

  • The Positive Note: While job losses have grown with each of the past five recessions, the overall loss is dwarfed by the total gains in the expansions. Even now, the economy continues to add jobs (most recently 263k in November 2022) despite mostly downbeat national headlines.

Interested in learning more about how Idaho's commercial market could be impacted by employment and economic trends?  Contact Andrew Boepsflug to continue the discussion.