Looks pretty bad to me — especially after taking into account downward revisions for December. Not too good on the output side either.

Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment, seasonally adjusted, various releases. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray (assuming recession has not ended by 2009M01). Source: BLS, employment situation, various releases, via St. Louis Fed FRED II.

Looking at hours worked provides a slightly different perspective on the change in the employment situation (not necessarily a prettier picture, though).

Figure 3: Log Nonfarm payroll aggregate weekly hours (blue), and Log Nonfarm payroll employment (red), seasonally adjusted, normalized to 0 in 2007M12. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray (assuming recession has not ended by 2009M01). Source: BLS, employment situation, December release, via St. Louis Fed FRED II, and author’s calculations.

We also now have a first (unofficial) reading on output in the new year.

Figure 3: GDP (light blue bars), GDP from e-forecasting, 2/6 (blue), and from Macroeconomic Advisers 1/15 (red) in Ch.2000$, SAAR. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray (assuming recession has not ended by 2009M01). Source: BEA, GDP release of 23 December, e-forecasting 1/9 and Macroeconomic Advisers [xls] 12/16 release.

For now, the downward trajectory in output seems to be continuing.

Last 5 posts by Menzie Chinn

• Debt and Interest Rates: Some Empirical Evidence and Implications - November 23rd, 2009
• Baselines, Counterfactuals and the Stimulus - November 21st, 2009
• China, the Renminbi, and Global Imbalances: A Quantitative View - November 20th, 2009
• GDP: Revisions and Forecasts - November 19th, 2009
• Assessing the Impact of Government Policy on Widget Consumption and Widget Sector Capital Usage - November 16th, 2009