US job losses since the recession began in December 2007 now total 5.1m, and the increase in unemployment is now topped by only one post-war recession. Only the over-55s are adding jobs, forced to work by the hit to their savings. Real wages are still rising, but they are likely to drop, probably through resurgent inflation.
In terms of the unemployment rate, now 8.5%, the current recession now trails only that of 1982, in which unemployment peaked at 10.8%. In terms of jobs lost, it also trails that recession, with a 4.1 percentage point increase in unemployment compared to 5.2 points in 1982. But the 3.3m jobs lost in the last five months is a post-war record for so short a period, even adjusting for increases in the labour force.
The only group for which employment has increased during this recession is the over 55s, both male and female. This is probably supply-driven. Rather than a sudden economic need for experienced but speed-challenged workers, the sharp drop in the value of retirement savings looks the likely motivation for the increase. The trend has been continuous since the dotcom crash, with over-55 employment rising from 18.0m in 2000 to 27.0m today.
More broadly, a rising supply of unemployed workers usually leads real wages to drop. This has not yet happened. Hourly wages in March 2009 were up 3.6% compared with March 2008, while the consumer price index rose just 0.2% in the year to February.
And it didn't happen in the Great Depression. The rise in real wages in 1929-31 as prices deflated - along with continuing high real wages through 1930s unionization - is generally reckoned a contributing factor to the high unemployment of the 1930s, which peaked at 25%.