Unemployment Following the Recession

A recession is defined as 'a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters'. The above image shows the unemployment rates, by county, in the USA. As this map shows statistics from 2009, following the global financial crisis of the late 2000's, the rate of unemployment is very high. The national average rate of unemployment in 2009 was 10.6%. This is a huge difference from the statistics before the recession. in November 2007 unemployment was at just 4.7%, this means that in just 2 years unemployment in the USA more than doubled.

The american Mid West seemed to be better off than the rest of the country following the recession and this could possibly be down to the fact that classically jobs here include hunting and agriculture, whereas in cities, where the recession hit the hardest, many people work office jobs as opposed to working in industries.

Although different parts of the country were impacted to different extents, the above image shows that the effects of the recession were far reaching in the USA and everyone felt the sting of the recession.

Sources:
http://www.esri.com/news/arcwatch/0609/demo-and-eco-changes.html