Sensitivity to the business cycle

The first issue is the much greater impact that recession has on employment in certain clinically vulnerable industries in the economy particularly in durable manufacturing. This can be easily illustrated in tables that show the percentage decline in real gross national product and non farm payroll employment, respectively in the goods-producing and service-producing sectors of the economy in each of the recessions. Employment in the goods-producing sector of the economy is subject to the much greater cyclical volatility than is employment in the service sector. Over all recession the average percentage decline in employment in the goods-producing sector was 8.3 percent while employment in the service-producing sector actually increased by 0.3 percent. Within each sector the extremes in the cyclical responsiveness of employment are illustrated by the durable manufacturing industries and government respectively.