Atlantic and Pacific coasts' labor markets hit hard in early 1990's (EXCERPT) Monthly Labor Review Online, Feb. 1993

T he recession of the early 1990's hit hardest on the east and west coasts, starting in the Northeast, especially in New England, and then moving down the Atlantic coast. During 1991 and continuing into 1992, the Pacific coast also felt the effects of the recession. The Midwest and the South Central part of the country were much less affected. By contrast, the regions that were ravaged by the deep recession of 1981-82 were the heavily industrialized "rust belt" States of the Midwest and East South Central States.

This article examines labor market changes in major geographic regions of the country from 1990 through 1992 and compares these developments with those of the 1981-82 recession. It relies primarily on calendar-year averages of employment and unemployment for the 1989-92 period, with occasional references to to earlier years. The article utilizes newly available seasonally adjusted data on employment status by census region and division,¹ as well as data on nonfarm wage and salary employment by industry.² Seasonally adjusted quarterly data are used when an annual average obscures important changes during a year and when analyzing events during 1992. Conditions in New England are examined in the greatest detail, because the New England States led the Nation into recession and suffered the most severe declines in their labor market conditions.

This excerpt is from an article published in the February 1993 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

Footnotes
¹ The States (and the District of Columbia) that make up the four census regions and nine divisions are as follows:

Northeast		Midwest
New England		East North Central
Connecticut		Illinois
Maine		Indiana
Massachusetts		Michigan
New Hampshire		Ohio
Rhode Island		Wisconsin
Vermont
		West North Central
Middle Atlantic		Iowa
New Jersey		Kansas
New York		Minnesota
Pennsylvania		Missouri
		Nebraska
South		North Dakota
South Atlantic		South Dakota
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia		West
Maryland		Mountain
North Carolina		Arizona
South Carolina		Colorado
Virginia		Idaho
West Virginia		Montana
		Nevada
East South Central		New Mexico
Alabama		Utah
Kentucky		Wyoming
Mississippi
Tennessee
		Pacific
West South Central		Alaska
Arkansas		California
Louisiana		Hawaii
Oklahoma		Oregon
Texas		Washington

² The two primary sources of data are the Current Population Survey (CPS) of about 60,000 households and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey of about 350,000 nonfarm establishments. State data from the CES are not currently available on a seasonally adjusted basis; therefore, the first two sections of this article utilize CES annual averages, while the third section uses January-November averages for 1991 and 1992.