Manufacturing employment in recessions and recoveries

Quarters since recession began (peak = 0) 1982 1991 2001  2009  Average of post-WWII, pre-2009 cycles
0 1 1 1 1 1
1 0.981385 0.989407 0.978733 0.995517 0.983851
2 0.958041 0.975812 0.954275 0.98546 0.962505
3 0.93699 0.966881 0.930384 0.970848 0.947621
4 0.91585 0.963917 0.911409 0.94596 0.935201
5 0.893679 0.960631 0.901343 0.900208 0.930206
6 0.891137 0.953022 0.891944 0.863108 0.929574
7 0.900329 0.953381 0.880547 0.845272 0.939741
8 0.914428 0.950964 0.868934 0.836718 0.946888
9 0.931585 0.949302 0.854933 0.832962 0.953629
10 0.945222 0.951474 0.844495 0.837566 0.961019
11 0.955729 0.949378 0.841049 0.840353 0.958245
12 0.961259 0.948811 0.839228 0.841613 0.961452
13 0.961205 0.951511 0.841852 0.846896 0.966083
14 0.958556 0.955684 0.842106 0.8515 0.970489
15 0.952262 0.961179 0.840638 0.855038 0.973636
16 0.946751 0.967127 0.838151 0.856444 0.97665
17 0.944048 0.97332 0.836819 0.862623 0.984601
18 0.941826 0.977871 0.834254 0.86713 0.957645
19 0.937666 0.977776 0.833686 0.869408 0.961816
20 0.933132 0.976247 0.8349 0.869069 0.96576
21 0.932118 0.975359 0.834998 0.872219 0.970466
22 0.932901 0.974887 0.831688 0.87205 0.973684
23 0.935265 0.975265 0.824991 0.871541 0.976506
24 0.940777 0.821975 0.875055 0.981302
25 0.947871 0.87789 0.986574
26 0.950431 0.880458 0.974274
27 0.883948

Note: The zero quarter represents the peak of prior business cycle (as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research). At the zero quarter, the manufacturing employment is indexed to one. The proceeding values therefore represent the percent change in manufacturing employment as the values enter recession and then the recovery.

Source: Author's analysis of  data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014a)

Source:  The recession dates are defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Their business cycles can be found at: http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html

Manufacturing employment data are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Employment Statistics public data series.

View the underlying data on epi.org.