Bloomberg

Bloomberg
Majority of U.S. Workers Lost Jobs, Wages or Hours, Pew Says
June 30, 2010, 11:56 AM EDT

By Timothy R. Homan
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- More than half of U.S. workers were either unemployed or experienced reductions in hours or wages since the recession began in December 2007, according to a private report.

The worst economic slump since the 1930s has affected 55 percent of adults in the labor force, the Washington-based Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization, said today. The survey found that 32 percent of employees where jobless at some point during the past 30 months.

The pace of hiring suggests it will take years for the world’s largest economy to recover the more than 8 million jobs lost during the contraction. A slow rebound in employment stifles consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

“A unique feature of the Great Recession is that, for the first time, the majority of the unemployed workers had lost their jobs for good,” Pew said in the report. “Households have adopted a more fiscally conservative path since the recession started.”

The majority of Americans, or 54 percent, say the economy is still in recession, while 41 percent say it is beginning to recover, the study showed. The National Bureau of Economic Research, which is responsible for determining U.S. business cycles, has not declared an end to the recession.

The survey of 2,967 adults was conducted by telephone from May 11 through May 31. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, Pew said.

--Editors: Carlos Torres, Christopher Wellisz

To contact the reporter on this story: Timothy R. Homan in Washington at thoman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz cwellisz@bloomberg.net