and what they are doing to prepare for the transition to a low - carbon economy. we are learning a great deal from these discussions, and we look forward to continued engagement with the industry on this topic. the microprudential work of the scc is one part of our efforts to take into account climate - related risks in carrying out the responsibilities congress has assigned to federal reserve bank of new york, “ kevin stiroh to step down as head of new york fed supervision to assume new system leadership role at board of governors on climate, ” news release, january 25, 2021, https : / / www. newyorkfed. org / newsevents / news / aboutthefed / 2021 / 20210125. - 11 us. the scc will work with staff in our financial stability, community development, international coordination, and research and data areas to build a coordinated approach to integrating climate - related risks where they affect our responsibilities. the federal reserve is engaging with colleagues from other regulatory agencies, central banks, and standard - setting bodies. at home, this includes exploring with members of the u. s. global change research program the ways additional scientific data, models, and other information would be used to expand our analysis of weatherrelated disasters and climate - related risks. climate change is a global challenge, and we recognize the benefit of collaboration across the official sector, while also taking into account important differences across jurisdictions. the federal reserve is co - chairing the basel committee on banking supervision ’ s task force on climate - related financial risks ( tfcr ). 24 having completed a stock - take of members ’ existing regulatory and supervisory initiatives on climate - related financial risks, the tfcr is now focused on finalizing by midyear a report exploring the transmission channels of climate risks to the banking system and a report that describes the methodologies used by banks and supervisors to measure these risks. next, the tfcr will turn its attention to developing supervisory practices to mitigate climate - related financial risks where there are potential gaps in the basel framework. already, many banks are incorporating supervisory expectations with regard to management of climate - related risks in foreign jurisdictions, for instance from kevin j. stiroh, “ the basel committee ’ s initiatives on climate - related financial risks, ” remarks at the 2020 iif annual membership meeting, ” october 14, 2020, https : / / www. bis. org / speeches / sp201014. htm. - 12 the european

began to be collected in 1948. even more dispiriting than this snapshot of the employment picture is that there is so little momentum toward improvements in labor market conditions. the level of payroll employment fell by nearly 9 million during and just after the recession. to date, only about one - fourth that number of jobs has been restored. the pace of job growth in recent quarters has been barely enough to absorb the increase in the labor force and wholly insufficient to produce meaningful declines in unemployment. the number of new claims for unemployment insurance suggests only modest gains in employment in coming months, while measures of job vacancies seem to have turned down. longer - term concerns for the u. s. labor market persistent employment weakness during an economic recovery, even such a tepid one, raises the important question of whether it is symptomatic of longer - run changes in the labor market. indeed, in some respects the recent weakness resembles the “ jobless ” recoveries that followed the 1990 and 2001 recessions. in both of those episodes, job growth remained weak well after the downturn in real gross domestic product ( gdp ) ended, and the unemployment rate continued to rise, though from lower levels than we have today. one might reasonably ask if these similarities suggest that structural changes have placed the labor market on a permanently lower growth path. a first response is that there are important differences between this recovery and the recoveries that followed those earlier recessions. in particular, some explanations offered for the weak labor market recovery following the past two recessions are clearly not relevant today. both the 1990 and 2001 recessions were relatively shallow downturns. this factor may have allowed more of the employment adjustment to occur through attrition, which can be spread over a longer period than layoffs. and both of those recessions followed long expansions, which may have permitted a buildup of productive inefficiencies that gave businesses scope to increase output in the subsequent recovery without expanding employment. 2 that said, there are some discouraging longer - term trends. even before the recession, the labor market seemed to be on a slower trajectory than in previous decades. between the business cycle peak in early 2001 and the peak in late 2007, the number of payroll jobs rose an average of only about 0. 6 percent per year, compared with job growth of 1. 8 percent per see michael w. l. elsby, bart hobijn, and aysegul sahin ( 2010 ),