A post at The Economic Populist suggests unemployment from GM will get much worse:

I just had a truly frightening experience. During a conversation about the auto industry one of my colleagues who researches the auto industry told me that according to his calculations, the GM shutdown is going to send 250,000 off the job in Ohio.

This includes only the multiplier effect at auto suppliers, not any macro economic effect. For example, job losses at retail stores resulting from drops in spending are not included, nor are any further drops from other problems.

The post goes on to suggest that Indiana will see over 100,000 and Michigan a whopping additional 1 million in unemployment!

The BLS reports today:

“In the 12 months ending in February, hires totaled 55.3 million and separations totaled 59.2 million, yielding a net employment loss over the year of 3.9 million. The loss resulted from total separations remaining level over the year, while hires trended sharply downward.“

This data is not seasonally adjusted, so it’s a little more reliable.  The interesting thing about this is the job reductions in aggregate over the past 12 months have been accomplished mainly through a form of attrition, rather than layoff.  In a simplified, but we think reasonable, view, firms can be seen as retaining existing workers but not hiring new workers entering the work force.  If, in aggregate, firms begin laying off existing workers in addition to not hiring new workers, a whole new wave of unemployment could result.

If firms come to the conclusion that production needs to fall faster than the rate at which new workers are entering the workforce, then separations will trend up along with hires in future BLS reports.