Unemployment and Recessions, 1980–2013This FIGURE shows a close-up of the unemployment rate since the 1980s, with the shaded bars indicating recessions. It’s clear that unemployment always rises during recessions and usually falls during expansions. But in both the early 1990s and the early 2000s, unemployment continued to rise for some time after the recession was officially declared over.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics; National Bureau of Economic Research.