The 2001 recession began in March and ended in November of the same year. In that time period, the employment trough had yet to occur because employment tends to lag economic recovery. It wasn’t until the summer of 2003 that the nation reached a trough, with a maximum unemployment rate of 6.5 percent. Kansas reached 6.3 percent, and the Wichita metropolitan area reached a maximum of 8.3 percent, which represented a loss of 15,000 jobs.
In the current recession, the Wichita MSA June 2009 unemployment rate reached 8.3 percent, but the total number of jobs lost is around 6,000. The question then becomes: Why such a huge sway in the unemployment rate from limited job losses compared to the 2003 unemployment trough?
