In 1991 and '92, during the last recession, for example, the median duration of unemployment got up to 10 weeks. In April, the median dropped below six weeks because the number of newly unemployed increased. If that number stays around six weeks, that means people are getting reemployed fairly quickly and is indicative of the resilience of the U.S. economy. That's just a tenth of a percent higher than a year ago, when things were hot. The real story of the economy is not mass layoff announcements.
Mass layoffs are just one piece of the economic puzzle and a small one at that.
Layoffs are serious, but not a cause for hysteria when viewed from the perspective of the continuing strength of the U.S. economy. On June 1, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release the latest data from its Monthly Economic Situation Report. Even if those numbers are up a decimal point or two, that won't be very significant because so far, those indicators aren't looking too bad. In fact, they're pretty much following the pattern we saw in 1996, when we had one quarter of negative growth but not two in a row, and so avoided a recession. According to Bird, it's still possible to avoid a full-blown recession this year.